For a half a million I’d play middle linebacker without a helmet

Cross country is the easiest of sports to score. There are seven runners per team, a runner gets the number of their finish and the top five are added and the low score wins. Runners six and seven can push back – displace – the top five runners from the other team, fattening their score.

Last Wednesday at the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment’s home Cape course, the Viking girls won a showdown with Sussex Tech for control of the Henlopen Conference. The Ravens grabbed the top two spots as Isabel Wharton in 19:21 and Emily Ritter in 19:27 came in ahead of Ali Coning in 19:29 and Rebecca Pepper in 19:55.

If you keep score at home the Vikings had four points to make up. Bethany Killmon of the Ravens beat Shanel Dickens of Cape to the line and now with each team having the top three runners across the finish line, Cape trailed the Ravens by five points. Places 7-8-9 were grabbed by Cape’s Rachel Sadowski, Tricia Colluci and Lydia Miller followed by Doris Miguel-Perez for 10th and that was that total team effort with Cape getting the 28-30 victory.

“We gotta get out of displace.”

I think there is a mathematical pattern: if your No. 6 runner crosses the line before the other team’s No. 5 then you win? Scratch that theory Pythagoras; it doesn’t work. This sport is more complicated than I thought! You gotta bust up the pack, that I can understand.

HORNETS TO THE BIG HOUSE - Delaware State football team and the cheerleaders will board a charter flight Friday for the trip to Ann Arbor and a battle with the big blue of Michigan. The band is also going but it has its own budget and so must find its own airplane. The Hornet band will perform at halftime in front of 104,000 fans and, trust me, Delaware State will snap and give them a show to remember. I’m not sure what will happen in this game - the Wolverines have lost consecutive games at Michigan State and Iowa. I do know there will be no mercy and no one is looking for any - just that check for $550,000 for filling a void in the schedule.

The Michigan marching band - 350 strong with one drum major who doesn’t dance - marches to the stadium stopping at tailgates then through the tunnel and performs before the game. Penn State follows Delaware State into Michigan so all Wolverine fans are thinking “tune up time.”

But what if the game is close? Give credit to the Hornets for taking on this challenge, but for a half million dollars I’d play middle linebacker without a helmet.

BIRDS AND BRET BATTERING BAD TEAMS - The Eagles are 3-1 on the season heading out to 1-4 Oakland. The combined records of the Panthers, Chiefs and Buccaneers are a depressive 1-13. Eagles quarterbacks Donavan McNabb and Kevin Kolb rang up big numbers in all four Eagles games. If the Eagles beat the Raiders as expected by all compulsive sports gamblers in the country their victory victims will have a cumulative record of 2-18 - not exactly a reason to get giddy even though the Eagles next go to Washington for a Monday night game.

The Redskins (2-3) host Kansas City this Sunday - a game that is a scalper’s nightmare but a bonanza for beer sales. The Ravens, recently ranked No. 1 in Sports Illustrated power rankings, are now 3-2 and facing the dreaded 3-3 go to Minnesota where Ray Ray and his posse will work on putting some purple bruises on the butt of Wrangler pitchman Bret Favre.

You have a better chance finding a black man with a Rush Limbaugh bumper sticker than sporting a pair of Wrangler jeans. I don’t play fantasy football - seems gay to me - but the Eagles tight end Brent Celek is 6-foot-4 and 255 pounds with 26 catches and two touchdowns and the former Cincinnati Bearcat is a flat-out athlete - the quintessential tight end, a throwback to throw to.

SNIPPETS - Nettie Choice, former Cape volleyball player, is now a senior playing at Wesley College. Nettie leads the 7-11 Wolverines.

The Cape Sharks Pop Warner football franchise is considering changing its name to Cape Vikings Pop Warner to be more in harmony with the local football programs.

The Delaware Storm U10 fast- pitch softball travel team is looking for more players. It practices in Millsboro and has an indoor facility in Georgetown for practice in the winter. The contact name is Jerry Kirby and his cell is 236-2274. 

I have to go climb a fence and steal a brick.