This is the time for end-of-year garbage stuff or even worse

I can spot a bad and bogus oddball quack 15 miles away which is the distance to the horizon line. And it generally takes me less then a minute. In coaching it’s easy. There are certain key clichés uttered to let me know the person has no idea what they are talking about. I used to joke that the human animal is the only one on the planet that can take control of a group without kicking somebody’s butt. Leadership, confidence and trust in a person should be earned, but the animal instincts of many people have been dulled as we give in to titles and credentials while ignoring obvious and glaring warning signs.

Defective adults proliferate throughout our species and I’m ready for them, but we all are charged with protecting the children from babies to teenagers. I worked 35 years in high schools and was always vigilant and protective of students and would call out roving “counselors without credentials” who were way too deep into the trust of students hearing stuff they had no business knowing about.

I am also strongly opposed to allowing outside groups to have access to schoolchildren mainly because any adult with a twinkle in their eyes who thinks they can lead some teenage group therapy session is by definition all the way out of their minds.

COACHING CLINIC - This is the time for end- of-the-year garbage columns or even worse - “all decade” stuff. Personally, I have a Ph.D. in sports reporting and I like to joke “those who study the past are condemned to remember it.”

I have seen some bad coaching out there over the years and I would like to teach a course just to ferret out those know-it-alls who are missing the key element of personality known as empathy - can you feel me? What possible reason is there to clear the bench in the final minute with a 30-point lead? How about a junior varsity player who doesn’t see the field in a 35-point victory?

I recently inquired about such a situation and the coach said, “He doesn’t know his plays.” My response was, “And you don’t know anything.”

Do these coaches get it? Seriously, instill confidence and give kids opportunity and they almost always surprise you. I never believed in scrubs - I think they are created by coaches. Put me in a game during mop-up time and I’m looking for the bucket. I coached varsity football and all my guys played while the game was still a game. I had the opportunity to elevate a young man’s self-esteem and I took it.

TRANSFERENCE - I am a believer in “teach for transfer” - in other words, don’t require a person to learn to do something that has no real transfer value to actual life situations. We do it all the time in the classroom, like teaching medieval feudalism to an identified and certified group of underperforming malcontents with oppositional defiant disorder or have athletes run five miles in practice for a sport played on a field of 120 yards.

What’s the point, what’s the reasoning and where is the “transfer value” are always good questions.

OH SUSANNAH - Christmas and Susannah is one of my daughters-in-law, but I’m flashing back to when I was 14 years old and got a Christmas present from a lady named Mrs. Greer in Seattle who knew my parents during the war years and always sent us holly and presents. My father was wasting away in a hospital bed down the hall while I cranked my plastic player ukulele to “Oh Susannah.”

I was sitting on the floor cracking wise about my new gift. My saintly mother, who never uttered a bad word about anybody or anything, calmly walked into the room, grabbed the ukulele and broke it over my head for a slapstick snapshot of my selfish childhood.

SNIPPETS - The Cape boys basketball team will play in the Wicomico tournament at 1:30 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 26, facing Parkville of Maryland. And Monday, Dec. 28, the boys will face Flowers High School at 5:45 p.m. If you are motivated to go then you must know how to get there.

Most gyms are running membership specials for the new year so set aside some happy hour money and become a fit person. My new hip is awesome and I can do the entire stack of weights multiple times on all the girlie machines at the gym.

At 1 p.m., Friday, Jan. 1, is the Lewes Polar Bear Plunge at Cape Henlopen State Park. This is year 27 and cold is always cold and, like a bad relative, you can never get used to it.