This year’s showdown is CR, Central and Smyrna

I sat in the bleachers at Seaford last Tuesday night, a minority man in every sense of the word - race, age and number of arthritic joints - watching a boys’ basketball game. Ken Dunning and I both had pulled up a wall to support our backs, and Ken said to me, “I didn’t know referee Lloyd Mears was a track star until I read that in your column.”

“And I didn’t know a defender could get called for three seconds in the lane but Lloyd just did it.” Lloyd called me the next morning. “That’s the first time in 40 years I made that call. I don’t know what I was thinking. I took time and explained to both coaches that it was an inadvertent whistle. I know Justin Benson-Reid is still wondering what he did.”

The big three - The showdown is about go down in Henlopen Conference wrestling as Caesar Rodney, Sussex Central and Smyrna have yet to grapple against each other.

Get a ticket now if you like crazy intensity with more electricity and high tension than the Super Bowl in Dallas, which is just a bunch of rich poser power elitists with connections pretending for one game that they are real fans.

Central will host Caesar Rodney Wednesday, Feb. 2, then wrestles at Smyrna Wednesday, Feb. 9. The Caesar Rodney versus Smyrna match is Friday, Feb. 4, at CR.

I have hardly ever seen any of these teams lose head to head, so I am intrigued by that much drama. I interview wrestling coaches, and I always feel they are looking to pick up my ankle and leg sweep me to the mat.

Gender equity - I am still intrigued that the University of Delaware could think of dropping men’s cross country and track, arguing that dropping two men’s sports is more fiscally sound than adding two sports for women.

It reminds me of the big bruiser blockhead on the far side of a 180-minute happy hour. “I’ve got to get home or my wife will kill me.” “Unless she has a rhino tranquilizing dart on the end of an air rifle, you are most likely safe,” I would say.

I know from experience that women don’t like to be used as excuses as to why men do certain things. So if I were you, Blue Hen athletic woman (think about that for a minute), I’d resent gender equity being used as an argument to drop a 100-year-old program. I propose dropping men’s golf - eight people on team and only one from Delaware - and men’s tennis - nine people on the team and only one from Delaware because who cares?

Sports exclusively for women at Delaware beginning next year will include cross country, indoor and outdoor track, field hockey, softball, volleyball and my personal favorite, rowing. Delaware State University has bowling for women - I prefer prize money - and equestrian.

Combine the two and you have a sport worth playing or watching.

Grandfather and godfather - Jack Redefer died Tuesday, Jan. 25, a father, grandfather, godfather and great-uncle to so many athletes I have covered over the years.

The Redefers, the Judge clan, the Kmetz family and more all go back to Jack Redefer. Jack was a Notre Dame graduate and a captain of the Rehoboth Beach Patrol in the 1950s.

The younger relatives called him Joe, his name was John, and everyone else knew him as Jack. A major community player in Dewey, Jack will be missed by all who knew him.

Good to remember - Odelia Bundick Duffie of Belltown, born in 1932, died Jan. 16.

She was matriarch to eight children, 21 grandchildren, 44 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

She had three brothers and four sisters I know personally and so many descendants I can’t begin to count them, just a great extended family. Billy Duffie, son of Odelia and the Rev. Braven O. Duffie, was a hurdler on my track team and I can see

him in 1977 like it was yesterday. Billy was just so confident and such a cool person. Billy drowned in the ocean in the summer of 1977 and at his funeral was a banner, “We all loved Billy, but God loved him more.” I duck from salvation whenever I can but I have never forgotten that. It gives me strength when storm clouds darken my sky.

Snippets - Stop twirling your lacrosse sticks for a second and pay attention! All registration for Atlantic Lacrosse will be done online at atlanticlacrosse.org. Registration closes Friday, Feb. 25. The first game is Saturday, March 26, and the last one is Saturday, May 21. The league age breakdown: Scoopers - born in 2004 or 2005, U9 - born in 2002 or 2003, U11 - born in 2000 or 2001, U13 - born in 1998 or 1999, U15 - born in 1996 or 1997. And in the words of the great Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Satchel Paige, who threw three shutout innings for the Kansas City Athletics at the age of 60, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” I’m trying out for Scoopers.