For some kids the school family is the best family they’ve got

I announced the senior cheerleaders, managers and football players before the game last Friday night. As always, some parents who are living and not incarcerated or hospitalized and were expected to be there were no shows. Some years ago I was a last minute stand-in daddy for a devastated teenage girl and, as is always the case, this girl was just the greatest kid, but such are the hard lessons of life. I do know that for some kids the school family is the best family they’ve got.

BILLY THE GOAT - There was 4:52 left in the football game. Notre Dame was trailing the Naval Academy 21-7. Quarterback Jimmy Clausen lofted a fade pass to the insanely talented receiver Golden Tate. The ball was long and into a crowd that always seems to rim the end zones at Notre Dame. Mascot Billy the Goat stepped from the throng into the zone and gave Clausen the double-armed waving hands hex sign.

The moment was surreal! It was Billy the Goat versus Touchdown Jesus, the giant mural overlooking the stadium on the end of a dorm building. Doubly disturbing when set against the backdrop of the newly hyped Special Forces movie “Men Who Stare at Goats” which is about military experiments into the paranormal, to be used in interrogation.

Anyone outside the United States culture cannot understand us without analyzing how sports and foreign policy come together. I believe for most Americans foreign affairs is the distraction while attention to sports teams, from Little League to professional, is a full-time obsession. That is why we Americans prefer to make quick work or our enemies - we are set up as a two minute offense so why milk the clock?

Back when George W. Bush gave the order to bomb Afghanistan after 9-11, it happened at 1 p.m Eastern time on a Sunday and was shown on jumbo scoreboards around the NFL. I was in Baltimore and the crowd went bonkers before settling into the football game. What other worldwide naval power has a guy dressed like a goat running around putting the hex on a leprechaun?

PAY FOR THE PRIVILEGE - The state tournaments are run by DIAA which accounts for the usual ramped-up attitude of unfriendliness. That means “everybody pays” and all annual passes are scrutinized.

Tower Hill received the No. 1 seed in field hockey so just put them in the final and see who shows up from the other bracket of eight teams. Cape, at 14-0-1, will host William Penn (8-3-4) at 4 p.m. Tuesday Nov. 10, while Sussex Tech (14-1-0) will host Middletown 8-5-2. If victorious, Cape will face the winner of St. Mark’s and Charter with time and place to be determined by who plays whom and availability of officials and fields. Sussex Tech, if it wins, will play the winner of Archmere versus Concord.

The only way the Vikings and Ravens rock a rematch of the regular-season game is if they both reach the semifinals. Tower Hill, coached by Cape grad Robin Adair, gets to go through Seaford then picks up the winner of Delmar at Milford. Neither Delmar nor Milford are teams to dismiss as either (neither and either hardly ever occur in the same sentence) has the talent, coaching and experience to rise up and knock over a higher seed.

SNIPPETS - Bloomsburg University received the top seed in the six-team NCAA Division II field hockey tournament. The Huskies, with local athletes Amanda Deloy and Lindsay Danz on the roster, will await the winner of the Shippensburg/East Stroudsburg game. Stonehill College will receive a first-round bye in the other bracket. Semifinals will be played at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m., Friday, Nov. 13, with the championship final at 1 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 15. These games will be played at WB Mason Stadium on the campus of Stonehill College in Easton, Mass.

If you like state tournament soccer, and who doesn’t, you can catch the Sussex Tech Ravens versus the Seaford Blue Jays at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12, at Dover High School. Indian River will play Delaware Military Academy at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 11, at Dover.

In the middle school doubleheader last Thursday at Legends Stadium, Mariner lost to Dover while Beacon beat Seaford and it drew a huge crowd of fans and drivers as most middle school students don’t have a driver’s license and need a ride.

I do remember teaching a geography class of seventh-grade repeaters at Milton 25 years ago and one day we had a party for a boy named Frank who drove to school on his brand-new driver’s license.

Say it didn’t happen but you would be wrong.

The combined record of the five teams the Eagles have beaten is 12-29 and five of those wins are by the spiraling downward Giants who have lost four in a row.

The Eagles play at 5-3 San Diego Sunday, Nov. 14, and the Chargers have won three in a row.

The Ravens lost again to the Bengals and let me be the first to say “Ray Ray Nay Nay!”