I always considered myself a bad technique coach

Still photography freezes bad form in the sport of track where technique trumps everything that isn’t speed and power. Non-arching high jumpers and half-stepping triple jumpers are the worst offenders excluding the pole vault. Coaches like me who can’t actually do the event demonstrate by standing on the ground making hand signals and arching our backs and saying things like, “You gotta do this then you gotta do that.”

I always considered myself a bad technique coach, especially in the hurdles, and I assume laughing was not positive reinforcement. Last Friday at the 11 middle school track extravaganza and house party there was great talent all over the place and most of it wild and relatively clueless and heading to other sports once they reach high school. I saw a Milford girl absolutely “kill it” in the hurdles but when I checked out her form all I could say was “whoa!”

BIG YELLOW TO BIG YELLOW - Coach Jimmy Sumstine put runners in their exchange zone at last Thursday’s home meet versus Lake Forest and told the athletes, “The zone is big yellow to big yellow.” I thought, “How smart of him not to assume that any of the runners had passed geometry.”

I lost a relay giving a novice sprinter the instructions, “Make sure to take the pass inside the triangles.” He took the pass outside the zone and afterward when I reminded him of the triangle rule he drew a triangle in the air and said, ”Hey Fredman, are they them things shaped like this?”

MILLSBORO - Track at Sussex Central is ready to happen based on the talent I’ve seen at the middle school level. Millsboro won the invitational last Friday and Caesar Rodney is also stacked. But I know the sport must be given the same financial support and enthusiastic backing as the rest of the teams in Georgetown where baseball is top dog.

I heard refracted rumblings of how it’s tough to compete against baseball just as I’ve heard at Cape it’s tough to go head-to-head for talent with the lacrosse programs. When I was handed the Cape track job back in 1975/76 I looked around and asked, “How many black kids play baseball and lacrosse,” and when I was told “not many” I answered “I’m good!”

NANTICOKE CONNECTION - The Cape boys track team doesn’t score many points in the distance events. What happened to a Nanticoke Indian tribe and the Rabbits Ferry connection? I know it is a stereotype that those with Indian blood can run distance, but I saw it played out over the years with last names like Street, Morris, Harmon, Jackson, Norwood, Johnson and Wright. If I were still the track coach I’d be going to the Powwow and sitting down with the tribal elders. And what about the athletes from Slaughter Neck? Where has everybody gone?

STREET URCHIN – My grandmother always told me, “If you thought of something on your own you can guarantee some lawless moron has already put the plan into place.” Super-smart kids of working middle-class parents would be financially astute and cute if they became so annoying and incorrigible breaking their parents’ resolve and getting kicked out just remembering at the same time to get good grades and be a perfect child in school with plenty of teacher advocates. Then when it comes time to apply to that 45K a year liberal arts school the kid qualifies for 100 percent aid. All it does is push rebellion up a few years and saves a lot of money.

FLYING FATTY - Andrea Wells upset Kiara Brooks of Lake Forest in personal record time to win the 300-meter hurdles as her teammates all yelled “Go fatty.” You cannot get further from fat than Andrea who said it was a nickname from middle school earned mostly because of her appetite. I know an old school 5x guy threw the shot indoors 30 years ago goes by the name of Slim and many of my readers know him too.

SNIPPETS - The Sussex Tech girls lacrosse team lost at Ursuline last Saturday 16-12. The Ravens Maxine Fluharty and Austin Noonan of the Raiders each had eight goals. A program in its early stages, the Ravens have moved quickly into respectability in a sport with a steep learning curve.

I saw great depth of U15 lacrosse talent last Saturday on Hudson fields watching the girls and boys play and I don’t know where any of them are going to high school except for one girl who harbors some recessive Fredman genes.

Lynchburg did not make the Division III lacrosse tournament narrowly missing the field, but special recognition goes to freshman Franc Cook who won the starting goaltender job and was a percentage point away from being the top rated goalie in the ODAC conference.

Former Cape track athlete Becky Reidel, a senior ay Rider University, placed second in discus at MAAC Championships and sixth in Javelin.

Henlopen Conference track championships are this Friday and Saturday. I have seen sprinters with frozen prom hair and that’s just the guys.