I just want a cheap screwdriver; I’m not launching a rocket

Let’s get wired up! Cultures are changed by the young because they are quicker and more inventive, less committed to traditional ways, and hardly any of them are Republicans. The Friday night football sidelines are now totally different from the slow-as-molasses recordkeeping days of my grandmother’s generation. Rose told me when she learned of my aspirations to be a sportswriter, “Statistics are best stolen from others; why not watch the game and actually learn something and have a good time doing it?” I receive updated text scores from around the state each Friday night and my wife sends me scoring updates if the Phillies are playing. One Friday night the sideline physician went horizontal mode on his android phone and said, “You’ll be happy about this; the Phillies are up by a point in the ninth inning.” I suggested that he never talk about sports ever again.

Plow horses - I call pregame routines in football for those not allowed to touch the ball “stupid lineman tricks.” Most line coaches are blockheads - the ones I’ve known - but offensive linemen, in particular, tend to be analytical and introspective and are resistant to being trend-setting pawns unless the trend is to barely move, as in yoga routines. Big, bordering-on-fat, 60-pounds-over-ideal-body-mass-index guys will do yoga all freaking day long when the alternative is three-person monkey roll drills. The Black Bears of Maine did lots of pregame yoga before their game versus Delaware, and it looked a lot like synchronized swimming in full pad with no water in the pool. Backs and their coaches get to do the psycho circle and adrenaline rush, which last until you get your clock cleaned and it starts chiming everyone quarter hour.

Quirky question - Halftime of the Florida State-Miami game saw Miami quarterback Jacory Harris limp to the locker room. Sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson stopped coach Randy Shannon. “Your quarterback grabbed his groin just before halftime, coach. What is your biggest concern?” “My biggest concern is that he’s not hurt but thinks he’s Michael Jackson.” Okay, so I made up the answer.

Nervous disorders - The NFL celebration dances after touchdowns and sacks have gotten mostly improvisational, poorly choreographed and just plain dumb. I’ve seen a hornet dousedwith Hot Shot show more style before flying 400 miles an hour into a tree trunk. And if you argue, “It’s fun, it’s just a game,” then encourage your youth travel ball child to show off after a big play. We’ve all seen kids do that stupid butt shake gloating behavior after snagging the last doughnut just to annoy an already irritated sibling and it always works.

Snippets - Mitch, 11 and his sister Sienna, 7 - not to be confused with Sister Sledge - are the children of Cape graduates Mike and Karen Wotring Burnham and completed a hilly 5K for Hunger in Mullica Hill, N.J., last week in the 44-minute range. I remember when Bob Wotring had Western Auto and I bought a two-dollar screwdriver and had to be computerized in and logged out. After endless numbers and codes were entered into the system I said, ”I just want a cheap screwdriver; I’m not interested in launching a Saturn Five rocket.”

I have been stuck inside the Caesar Rodney homecoming and Halloween parades so many times I should get an honorary diploma from the school.
I like the planning: “You’re stuck, so shut up. You think this is bad, wait until the game starts.”

The University of Maryland’s women’s soccer team defeated NCAA No. 2-ranked Boston College 2-1 and North Carolina State 1-0, improving to 11-1-1 on the season. Former Cape player Lydia Hastings is a junior midfielder and three-year starter for the Terps.
Nick Kmetz, former Indian River quarterback now a junior at Colby College in Maine, threw for 290 yards and three touchdowns but the Mules lost to the Cardinals of Wesleyan College 27-20. Kmetz took over the starting duties in his freshman year. The Cape junior varsity field hockey team lost to Caesar Rodney last Thursday 1-0, the first loss at that level for Cape in five years. For the girls who played at Beacon the last three years it was their first ever loss in a field hockey game. “It’s interesting” is all that it means and it had to happen sometime. Caesar Rodney is a girls program on the way back.

Here is a word of advice to all athletes. Don’t tell stories of past accomplishments and awards that aren’t remotely close to being true and don’t exaggerate modern-day feats that can be easily verified as false. A little embellishment of the facts is permissible but don’t take it too far.