The Sussex Academy of Arts and Sciences was at Beacon Middle School last Monday for a soccer game. They left Beacon in the rear view mirror with a 2-0 victory and many parents who have invested lots of time in travel ball soccer and have kids who can really play the game were not happy. I know that because I infiltrated the sidelines.
Beacon Coach John Myers - the dean of soccer coaches in all of Delaware - used his second half to play everybody, which is nice in an opportunity-developmental sort of way, but what about winning? What about playing the best kids together in a team sport to work on their development? What about tagging an emphatic loss on a charter school that has a bunch of talented kids who live in your district? What would I say to coach Myers if I were his boss?
“I’ve never been a boss before,” is the first thing I’d say. Then I’d say, “Your job is to win the game, let DNA take care of development! Play the best as long as it takes before you reach into your sportsmanship bag of honor.”
I wouldn’t be proud of myself but souls must be sacrificed for the overall common good of the team.
SENSITIVITY - A good coach at the high school level should understand how players are different in terms of their personalities, how they handle success and adversity, and the coach should never do anything to weaken a kid’s self-concept with harsh and pointless criticism.
I saw a basketball coach put a kid in a 30 point game with 7 seconds on the clock. That record was broken by another Cape coach who put a kid in with five seconds left in a game. I still remember who they were - players and coaches (and they know too) and the fact was they were great kids and good players and the coaches were successful. What would ever possess a person to do something like that other than a complete lack of empathy on the part of the coach?
But to me the scariest coach is the one who can’t evaluate talent and it may seem obvious that certain kids are better and should play more than other kids but often the play and substitution pattern is a real mystery to players and fans alike.
FORTUNES OF FOOTBALL Cape’s first three football opponents, Indian River, Delmar and Milford, have a combined record of 8-1. The combined records of foes down the road, St. Mark’s, Caesar Rodney, Sussex Central and Smyrna is 11-1. Sussex Tech, Polytech and Dover are the other teams on the schedule.
Cape is currently 1-2 heading into a Friday home game versus Sussex Tech.
I’m still seeing six wins for this talented Cape team. If that happens for the first winning season in eight years, I think the team should march in the Christmas parade. Let’s bring the small town back to big-time football.
INTEGRITY OF THE SPORT - Look at the physical freaks on the NFL football field and realize when the talk turns to steroids everyone thinks baseball. Also realize that in football games that don’t matter - preseason and playing out regular season when eliminated from clinched playoffs - NFL teams mail it in and play backups.
But not in major league baseball. The Cubs clinched home field throughout then went after the Mets like it was the World Series, taking two of three. And the Braves, beaten like a tom tom all season by the Phillies, did the “rise up and smack down” on Philadelphia two nights in a row as rally towels waved - such a cliché - proving home field is no advantage.
HOMEY DEPOT - Cry all you want over Yankee Stadium, just don’t park on the streets of the Bronx at night. A few years back my Jersey cousin did that and when he came out after the night game all four wheels and rims were gone from his car. He did what any strong young man does in that situation; he called his mother.
My aunt Marilyn is hypo active and unimpressed with anything that moves fast, offering, “I don’t know, Bobby,” and going back to sleep. But some dude came around the corner rolling a tire looking just like one that was missing. He told some story like he was an ambassador of the Michelin Man and then a pit crew showed up, put Bobby’s four tires back on the car, took his $200 and Bobby drove away thanking them and feeling lucky.
SARAH BARRACUDA Yes, we’ve all read how in 1982 point guard Sarah Palin was head of the fellowship of Christian Athletes at her small high school in Alaska and how she led the team prayer before basketball games and how “Sarah Barracuda” sank the winning free throw with an ankle stress fracture to lead her team to the state championship in the small school division.
Barracuda then attended five colleges in five years - graduating from Idaho in 1987 with a degree in communications. Palin’s husband is a former state champion long-distance snowmobile racer and, as governor Barracuda approved a predator control program allowing the hunting of wolves by helicopter and offering $180 a wolf to offset fuel costs. You can’t eat moose burgers for lunch if the wolves - pronounced wolfs in Philly - get there first.
Michelle Obama, formerly Michelle Robinson, is the same age as Palin and is a six-foot ripped and fit athlete. I’d like to see an ad of Michelle spinning a basketball on her finger and saying, “Hey Barracuda, I’m waiting for you.” Michelle graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law School. Her brother, Craig Robinson, is now the head basketball coach at Oregon State University and as a player at Brown University was two-time Ivy League player of the year and later coach of the year at Brown.
An anonymous letter writer advised me to never mix politics and sports, but as I always told my students, “Be smart and pay attention. All knowledge is valuable and all opinions are worthy even the satirical cheap shot. The world is not compartmentalized and everything flows into everything else.
“Sally, do you have a question?
“Lunch is the same time it is every other day.”
SNIPPETS - A turf field with miserable conditions predicted including rain and howling winds from the northeast. A decision must be made to play the Friday night football game against Sussex Tech or to postpone it to await better conditions. I will be in the protected press box awaiting that decision.
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Sports Editor Emeritus
Email Fredman at fredman@capegazette.com
