Cruising the countryside with a loaded camera

I cruise the countryside with a loaded camera looking for faces to focus on. Last Saturday at the Delaware game, the sidelines of Georgia Southern were filled with congenial War Eagles easy to engage in conversation. I saw the young face of a woman under a hood and snapped her photo. She looked cold but wholesome and unspoiled and to me she looked like a Georgia peach. Snap went the shutter, and she smiled warmly, unlike the northern attitude of “Don’t point that big lens at my face.” I asked the question, “And what do you do?” and Brittany Tootle responded, “I’m the director of recruiting,” and I said, “Of course you are.” She laughed; I asked if I could apply for early decision. “Go on now, git; is that early enough for you?”

The Haynes game - I caught this picture of No. 91 Siddiq Haynes, a four- year letter winner at Delaware, as he came off the field at halftime. Siddiq is a senior from North Carolina and English major interested in a career in broadcasting. Siddiq is one of seven children and one of the football team’s most community service-oriented individuals.

Sick and sic-‘em - DeSean Jackson and Mike Vick sat next to each other on the bench late Sunday afternoon as the Eagles trailed the Giants by 21 points with 7 minutes and 30 seconds left in the game. The duo represented the smallest, quickest and craziest athletes inside the New Meadowlands Stadium. Jackson is an arrogant punk of a personality. Vick is mysterious, bright and calculating with a proven history of outrageous behavior, good and bad.

I looked at them on my flat screen and reflected on so many similar athletes I had coached, guys so good and slightly-too-way-off center that when pressured, you just don’t know if they will quit or pull rabbits out of hats and bring home lost games to the circle of victory.

Check out this statistic: With 1,112 career punt return yards, DeSean Jackson surpassed Larry Marshall (1,086) for third place in team history. Larry Marshall and I went to the same high school, Bishop Egan, and were in the same hall of fame that was dropped for lack of interest. QB Michael Vick rushed for 130 yards, the fourth-highest single-game total of his career, and the most ever by an Eagles quarterback. Randall ran for more yards but most of it was sideways. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it was the ninth time in NFL history that a team trailed by 21 points in the fourth quarter and won the game, and the first ever by the Eagles. Who keeps these records?

Tough sport - I get wrestling and like watching it and agree there is not a tougher sport out there, but it seems to me there comes a point in wrestling more quickly reached than in other sports when a young man says, “You know, this just isn’t that much fun anymore, and like normal people I’d like to eat myself up about seven weight classes.” Scholastic wrestling in Delaware is a strong sport, but in spite of the showcase Beast of the East Tournament at the University of Delaware, the Blue Hens will likely sanction rugby as a collegiate sport before they bring back wrestling. Ice hockey came to western Pennsylvania and killed lots of wrestling programs because “hockey is more fun.” Delaware has a hockey rink and offers club ice hockey for men and women. There are also club teams for men and women in rugby and a club team for wrestling. I want to learn more about that. Anyone with any knowledge of a single dedicated college club wrestler, please email me at davefredman@comcast.net. That is a story I want to pursue.

Snippets - Once every so often in the personal agenda life of one who cares about his own interests, the “big question” is raised. “What is the purpose of middle school sports?” Is it proficiency or participation? And as we all chant “No Child Left Behind” or “Race to the Top” in the academic arena, we are quick to siphon off young kids in sports - cut them - and identify them as athletes with no chance to ever excel in high school. What the heck is that all about? The travel ball precious child syndrome is irreconcilable with the demographic of middle school, which offers more opportunities to more kids who may be lagging in skills but long on talent; there is just no way of knowing. Throw together any age-group travel team, give me three weeks to put my own team together from hallway critters and I’m coming after you to prove a point.

When talent meets opportunity, excellence is the result. It is on like Donkey Kong.