See the world outside while making decisions to benefit the greater good

Cultural anthropologists and sports psychologists not to mention physiologists who can simultaneously text and open a beer can without missing a letter or swallow, write and teach about athletic intelligence, which simply means seeing the bigger world outside of yourself while making good decisions to benefit the greater good; let’s say, for example, your team. Many smart people die after making a bad decision at the suggestion of some complete moronic stranger they have never seen before. There are several places on Route 1 where a person invites you to cross over, waving like, “Your turn, stupid!” If you just go without looking both ways you have a better-than-average chance of getting quickly dead. Last Sunday before the start of the Dogfish Dash 5 and 10K race in Milton that featured 1,500 runners, a complete stranger suggested to a volunteer that she stand on top of a raised manhole cover rather than just pointing to it from the safety of the sidewalk. I told the volunteer, ”Under no circumstances do you stand in the middle of a road with 1,500 people running at you, because you would most certainly be trampled, and you don’t look like a tramp, or stampeded and you would look like s stamp, all flat and wet and stuck to the ground.”

Night of the living dead - David Lewis was on a state championship cross country and track team I coached back in 1977 and 1978, his senior year of high school. He is just over 50 years old. Last Friday night I saw him before the football game and he told me, “Last June I just dropped and died and they had to bring me back.” David doesn’t look like a high-risk guy; he said wherever it was that he fell out some guy just happened to have a defibrillator and jump-started him back to planet Earth. David had a triple bypass at Beebe and is now rehabbing his way back to complete health.

Hand wringer - I have paid close attention and written about more scholastic field hockey games than most anyone who hasn’t moved on with his life. Cape program I have seen mostly good to great teams, and no, I don’t understand all the rules; I just assume that those who officiate the game understand and are unbiased, otherwise they would be clueless cheaters. And what’s the chance of finding that person for $65 a game? The Cape at Sussex Tech game last Thursday attracted a large crowd that wanted it bad for their girls and their team. I know and like too many Ravens to wish them bad so I keep an emotional distance. It was a strange back-and-forth contest won in overtime by Cape.

The Vikings outshot the Ravens by a slim margin but led in penalty corners awarded 10-0. I think it’s safe to say that most Raven fans I talked to thought that was pretty weird, suggesting a closer called game on the Tech defensive end. I don’t know how to escape from whatever I’m saying; I have just always believed that high school officials are honest and not in it for the money or some power trip.

Snippets - Merrimack College outscored Stonehill College 42-39 in Northeast-10 Conference football action Friday, Sept. 24. Kyle Norwood, a former Cape football and lacrosse player, is a sophomore receiver for Stonehill College. Kyle had five receptions and 98 yards and a touchdown for Stonehill in a game that featured 910 total yards.

This Thursday, Sept. 30, at 6 p.m. on the turf at Legends Stadium, it will be the Beacon versus Mariner middle school football game. The game always attracts a big crowd with lots of old school stories along the fence, and some of them are even true. The two middle schools are not scheduled to play each other this year in field hockey and soccer. There are five football players from Delaware on the Penn State roster: Justin Brown WR Concord, Eric Latimore DE Middletown, Devon Still DT Howard, Andrew Szezerba TE Sallies and James Terry DT Brandywine. There are 13 players from Delaware listed on the University of Delaware football roster, but it seems like Penn State got all the really big ones. Check schedules at websites4sports.com for the latest changes due to weather.