Race out with the old, but keep racing into the new year

Days at the races - I’ll be back on the habitrail to anywhere on the last day of 2023 covering the 20th annual Race Into the New Year 5K, which starts at 12 p.m. at Rehoboth Avenue and the Boardwalk before trekking north to Gordons Pond and back. The race is sponsored by Seashore Striders. The 13th annual Hair of the Dog 5K, sponsored by Races2Run, will be New Year's Day in Bethany Beach, starting at 10 a.m at Garfield Parkway and Atlantic Avenue and finishing on the boardwalk. The weekend races are perfect social events to watch people run away from the old, take a nap, then run in with the new. 

Strength and stretch coaches - A good strength coach for college athletes is worth their free weights in gold. Most are certified with master’s degrees. Men are 83.5% of the population, with women making up 16.5%. The most common ethnicity is white (66.9%) followed by Hispanic (13%), Black (8.7%) and unknown (5.7%), which includes Reindeer Chuckee, Lap Lanlanders and Azerbajanians. But seriously, some of these jokers can get you hurt by having athletes lifting too heavy, or recklessly from deadlifts to snatches. The ultimate responsibility for a sensible resistance training regimen rests with a head coach. A sport psychologist assigned to a team is also the responsibility of the head coach. I spoke with a group of accomplished Division I athletes over Christmas about all this stuff. Getting injured while training is so unnecessary, and so is someone messing up your competitive mindset. I come from the generation of running stairs followed by duck walking, otherwise known as a walking squat. I’m getting into the weeds here. I just suggest to athletes that you retain the right to not do dumb stuff, which makes you a coach's nightmare – an intelligent person who can think for themselves. 

Basketball - The Cape boys’ basketball team is off to a 3-3 start, while the girls are 2-4. Both teams resume play in 2024, with the girls playing at Caesar Rodney Friday, Jan. 5, and the boys hosting the Riders the same night. The girls are killing it at the JV level, going 3-0 and led in scoring by Amara Fruchtman, Maya Yngve and Harper Mamele. The Cape JV boys are 2-3 . At the middle school level, the Beacon girls are 5-0, Beacon boys are 4-1, Mariner girls are 4-0 and Mariner boys are 3-1.  The Seaford boys’ team is 4-0, while the middle school boys’ team coached by Jawon Sivels is 4-0 with an average margin of victory of 30 points. I’m not sure what it all means – I’ll have to ask the fans in the stands, but most won’t go on the record.  

APP for that - Old dogs like me are going ADD by choice because I’m more a fan of chaos than total cross-referenced subset data collection. Analytics in sports is real, and it's a disorder favoring those who can’t see the forest for the trees. Games have  storylines, not stat lines. I don’t want to know too much if it gets in the way of my creativity. I’ve emceed a thousand sports banquets and bring no notes to the podium. I follow no script and read no teleprompter. My motto: “Keep it real, even if it's wrong.” And when it's going well, just leave them laughing, and go on and git! 

Snippets - Jack  Schell will be a three-sport athlete at Cape his senior year playing soccer, basketball and lacrosse. He has signed with Syracuse for lacrosse, which is his best of the three. To his credit, he’s not hanging around concentrating on lacrosse, as he’s played his way through his senior year as a team player. Basketball guru Kenny Riedel says Schell has been the most consistent player on the basketball team. Soccer coach Patrick Kilby: “Jack was a mainstay in the starting 11 all season.” I’m thinking of a quiet study hall room for athletes to sit and concentrate on their best sport. Eric Bennett, former Milford 195-pound wrestler and a 2019 graduate, underwent a successful heart and kidney transplant on Christmas Day. Eric placed fourth at 195 at the Henlopen Conference Championships in 2019. Go to Facebook and type Eric Bennett in the search window, then go to his Go Fund Me link for the full story. Cape has four women currently playing college basketball: Abbey Hearn, senior, Kutztown; Morgan Mahoney, sophomore, Millersville; Julia Saleur, sophomore, Delaware State; and Mehkia Applewhite, sophomore, Menlo College in San Francisco. All four are on scholarship, according to Cape coach Pat Woods. Go on now, git!