Steeler Nation disappointment is entertainment

I overheard two guys in the 24/7 Fitness locker room talking about the best ways to put on weight. I couldn’t disagree when they named pizza, hot dogs and creatine monohydrate. One guy said he put on 14 pounds in three months, but if you came up in football locker rooms like I did, you know 14 pounds over Thanksgiving weekend is pretty easy to do and that’s while showing some restraint: “No thanks, one drumstick to dip in my potato crater is quite enough, thank you.” Speaking of the linemen for life club, there was a reunion of Rehoboth lifeguards Saturday, Feb. 5, in Dewey to celebrate the life of Jeff Cannon. A 1977 skinny runner guy showed up as a gray-haired, 325-pound sedentary guy. I saw my buddy coach Ron Allen in the gym, who said to me, “Oh yeah, he was so fat he made us look good.” You see, that’s the “whey” we real guys talk. Now I’m off to Vitamin World to pick up a jar of ginkgo biloba. (Isn’t he the guy who discovered the Pacific Ocean?) Extracted from the root of the ginkgo tree, ginkgo, when given to a control group of senior citizens, increased mental acuity, increased the speed of moves on a checkerboard and enhanced alertness for multi-tasking to play multiple bingo cards simultaneously and when creatine was added it gave them the strength to make balloon animals out of aluminum walkers. “I’ve got your Benjamin Button right here!”

Steeler Nation - Eagles fans love to relish the angst of crushing defeats in addition to loving relish on hot dogs, which is worse than Heinz ketchup. I am convinced the fun of being an Eagles fan is to suffer disappointment, which takes the focus off the disappointment of one’s personal life. I’m a writer who always wins because I’m not happy when sports fans are disappointed, but I do find it entertaining. Steeler Nation disappointment is the Mariana Trench of deep depression, and I know my buddies from the Iron City are so sick of Meet the Meat Packers talk and Wedge Heads and Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr and all of it. Tom Cappozoli wrote to me saying, “In Pittsburgh we are brought up to understand responsibility - support of the community, stand by our family and friends, fear in our lord, and cherish our old people and nuns - but our highest moral concern is that Super Bowl Ring! And any good football fan of any age in any town knows that and feels the same way!” The one nagging question is, “How come so many Pittsburgh fans have moved away?” No one moves back to the ‘Burg except Boy George Spalaris, a former Cape vice principal.

Festivals and futures - It is no secret that the extended beach community is a hotbed of field hockey activity and the athletic girls who consider it their No. 1 sport like to attend futures competitions and festivals because that is where they get noticed by college coaches. Olympian Carrie Lingo and national team member Maren Ford are examples that you can get there from here. This weekend is the Disney Field Hockey Showcase -four days and 13 fields with college coaches crawling all over the place. Some Cape athletes, by prior arrangement with their winter coaches, are jetting off to Disney World, and that’s cool but argumentative as it gets into loyalties versus opportunities, but as the song goes, “I may never pass this way again.” It’s a parent/coach/kid arrangement and no one else’s business. But I’d like to see one field hockey starter miss a crucial game - say to play in a lacrosse tournament - then come back without major drama.

Attention deficit - I liked coaching track because no one paid attention to me. It was just me and a group of athletes and no parent ever blamed me for a bad performance, at least not to my face. This Saturday the Cape track teams head to the University of Delaware for the state indoor championships while the swim teams will compete all day at Lake Forest at the Henlopen Conference championships. Basically no non-related people and no students will attend either event - just athletes, coaches, timers, meet directors, a photographer or two and maybe a bouncing sportswriter looking for a buffet. These sports lead the way in athlete participation but are just not fan friendly.

Snippets - One inch gets a school a two-hour delay. I love two-hour delays and I don’t even work at school anymore. What is up with people who read a text message - those touch-screen keypads are hard - with misspellings and respond “what?” Take your Bluetooth and your best friend handheld device and - go on now, git!