Being fully prepared these days means that athletes need to compete in their best sport, not only during the high school year, but as part of a club or additional organization during the "off" seasons.

This certainly isn’t a secret of course, but these club activities are basically more important than the high school season itself since the contests are against out of state clubs and athletes in front of more college coaches than would normally be seen in season.

Watching our standout athletes compete against athletes from other states is interesting for sure.

I traveled down to Baltimore this weekend to watch the Wilmington Volleyball Club’s 18 and under team managed by Wilmington College’s head volleyball coach Steve Lenderman, and coached by Concord High alum Beth Van Ryper.

On this team are three of our first-team all-state players; Lauren DiSabatino from St. Elizabeth, Lindsay Miller from William Penn, and Katie Greevy from Ursuline. Also from Delaware are Sanford’s Katie Annand and Katie Bowers, A.I. duPont’s Ketti Viohl, St. Elizabeth’s Claire Phillips, St. Mark’s Theresa Carlson, William Penn’s Sarah Booth, and Padua’s Stephanie Lort. They were competing in the North East Regional Qualifiers vying for a National Championship Tournament berth.

After the first two days of competition, our team was 3-3 in a pool of 400 all-star teams from around the country. And it should be realized that the Wilmington team was playing in the Club division as opposed to the Open division where there is actually even more talent.

But a nice performance here can land a good player a chance to play in college somewhere. After all, there were over 100 college coaches that had signed in to the tournament coordinators to try and perhaps pick up that outside hitter or defensive specialist that they might need. The Spartans Theresa Carlson, an All-Heart Team winner, has yet to sign with a school, but after having been seen in action as the setter for this club, had no less than five schools make an approach to her to see what her intentions are for the Fall.

I was fortunate to see Wilmington win the two matches that I stayed for. Greevy, Miller, DiSabatino, were playing their normally powerful games honing their skills for their first college seasons. DiSabatino and Miller will be staying locally and playing for Wilmington College while Greevy will be headed to Millersville in the autumn.

There were a couple different rules to deal with at this competition. One is that serves that hit the net and drop over are good and not side outs or points for the other team. Another is a position created particularly for those smaller players who are strong defensively. It is known as the "Libero". The Libero only plays in the back line and plays with a few restrictions. The Libero cannot attack the net offensively by leaping and striking the ball and cannot play any closer than 10 feet from the net. The player also wears a different color uniform from the rest of the players for substitution identification purposes.

The Libero is something that might be headed to the high school ranks in a couple of years, so when it comes, you will be prepared for its presence.

Delaware had two other clubs playing at the NEQ, the First State Volleyball Club and the Brandywine Volleyball Club. Mary Pat Kwoka from St. Elizabeth and Kim Huggins from Christiana are with First State as is Rachel Potter, who is a current player for Wilmington College. They had three teams competing.
Bob and Gina Trinsey run the Brandywine Volleyball Club who had two teams playing.

The tournament was held at the Baltimore Convention Center in downtown Baltimore. There were 50 courts running simultaneously, and was fun to watch operate. I was told that the Penn State tournament that is held on Memorial Day weekend has over 80 courts running at the same time, although they are in different buildings. All of the courts this weekend were in one building.

The second semi-annual All-Heart Team has been chosen and the awards will be presented soon. We will post the winners up on the site, as we did for the first one, as soon as everyone is notified and arrangements made for the presentation.
The All-Heart Team has had very positive response so far, so we will bring it back again for the 2001-2002 season.

Speaking of responses, I am looking for some viewer feedback from those who watch our television show. It’s time for some things to change since I’m starting to get a little bored with the present format and presentation.

Our show format, for those who have never seen it, is an extended game highlight presentation that is basically modeled after ESPN’s Sportscenter. That is my favorite show of all time, so this is how I pay my respects to it.

But I need more now or something different. There aren’t a whole lot of original ideas out there so it will be a matter of blending a few different ideas together, I’m sure, that will provide a change and attract some more viewers.

I’ve always wanted to do a show a little more on the controversial side because controversy equals ratings. But when we decided to cover high school sports primarily, that necessitated a change in those plans.

We’ve tossed around the idea of getting back to what the show’s original premise was - covering local amateur adult sports. There is no doubt that there is a lack of coverage for that and since we are in need of finding a niche out here, that was a way to go. There would be actual money to be made for us by making that switch, but we aren’t totally motivated by that.

The truth is that there isn’t ANY money to be made covering high school sports on TV for us. Local businesses just do not care. The only way that they will is if viewers patronize the sponsors. Sure, there are a few who chip in and advertise now and then, but I’ll tell you that most of them are friends or acquaintances who don’t really get much of a return on their advertising dollar. If you think I’m pulling your leg about that, pay close attention to the sports pages of the News Journal or any other sports page. There just aren’t a lot of ads in there.

Four years of providing primarily high school sports action has basically cost me about 60 thousand dollars and I may never recover from that. I love doing it, but it is very nearly bankrupting me here. So, it is time for some changes to be made so that there can be some new excitement, more attention from the public and the other media, and more of a chance to keep me financially afloat. I am open to serious suggestions, so please drop a line or call.

The Diamond State Games have been taking up a lot of my time these days, so I have cut back a little on some more of the finer details of the website such as adding more pictures. They are absolutely necessary to have, but it is a time consuming process to put a lot of them up on the pages.

The real next step for the website is getting back to putting video clips on it. With cable modems rapidly becoming more readily available around here, video will actually be able to be viewed in true time and with better quality than when we first tried to do it a couple of years ago. Upload time is a major factor for video as far as having it posted on a website is concerned. With cable modems files can be uploaded 10 times faster so posting video is more practical than before.

Video will open up this website like never before as long as it can be viewed at a normal speed and quality. We can post whole shows on the site or post more highlights and put as much as we want available at any time of the day for those who wish to see it. The television show will actually become obsolete and unnecessary to do when 75 percent of households are using computers with cable modem (or whatever high speed connection) access to the internet. We can archive our material also (as long as we rent the storage space) so if you were to miss the TV show at 7 or 7:30, you can just sign on and watch it from here.

The Internet is still the future for us here. We are all set to do a variety of things and are still looking for people who wish to help. There are paying jobs in the marketing area of Delaware Sports and there are still opportunities to intern and pitch in here and there.

I’ve been getting a lot of mail about Megan Collins, the soccer star from Caesar Rodney, since the Riders beat A.I. duPont the other day 1-0 with Collins kicking the only goal. We are well aware of Megan Collins here. After all, I gave her an all-state vote for kicker on the football team last fall so she is not a secret. And since she has been an all-state soccer player already, the name is not foreign to me.

I received a few notes about the changes in the softball rankings after Caravel lost to Milford and fell from #1 to number #5 as a result. The bottom line is that, for at least this period of time, Milford deserves to be ahead of Caravel, particularly since the score was 7-0 and not something like 1-0. Then remember that Delmar beat Milford earlier. Then recall that Indian River has thrown four no-hitters and their only loss was to Caravel in extra innings in what was basically a freezing rain less than 16 hours after having beaten St. Marks then traveling back and forth from here to home and back. Cape Henlopen gets the one spot because they are undefeated up to this point and coupled with Indian Rivers loss to what is now the #5 team earns the Vikings the one slot.

Do I think Caravel is actually the fifth best team in the state? Of course not, I still think they are the best team overall but they have to play like one every time they go out there. I am also pretty certain that the loss was a necessary wake up call so don’t be surprised to see them bounce back with a vengeance.

The Delmar Wildcats will be tested this weekend as they take on Indian River on Friday afternoon and then play a split doubleheader at Sussex Central against the Golden Knights at 11 and then Milford for the second time at 2 p.m. This is a very important test for the young Cats and if they can win 2 of 3 here can develop the confidence they will need to make a strong tournament run in May.

The Salesianum track team is looking rather impressive so far this spring. It will take a major effort to keep them from re-claiming the spring track team championship. The MVP of the team is clearly Jim Delgrosso, their hurdler and high jumper. Delgrosso also earns a comeback player of the year award (if there were one) after the accident in the fall of 1999 kept him out of winter track and most of the spring last year. He has broken Salesianum’s high jump record with a leap of 6’7", which could put some pressure on Brandywine’s Ivan Schmidt in the championships. It would be nice to see Schmidt get some serious competition in the high jump this year because I would truly like to see him break the 7’ barrier.

Well, no swimming pool for Christiana. It isn’t any surprise though since it was going to have to come from a new tax upon the district citizens who voted down the measure. What is surprising, I guess, is that it was only going to cost about 75 bucks a year (from what I was told) and that isn’t a whole heck of a lot. Besides, it wasn’t just going for one pool; it was going to a variety of other projects as well. I don’t have any kids but I voted for it anyway. We all need to put our money where our mouths are sometimes.

What I find ironic about that situation is that our new president is calling for tax cuts, but there are Delawareans who will actually say that we don’t need tax cuts. Are any of those the same people who voted "no" on that referendum?

Hmmm…..maybe it’s time for a new website- delawarepolitics.com.

The Delaware Sports Athlete of the Year award goes to the male and female athletes chosen basically by fans of the TV show and readers of the website (some of which are even the same). This is the fourth annual Delaware Sports AOY and this year the program may benefit from the Diamond State Games. The DSG is not run as a for-profit organization (God forbid) and if the Games make any money there will be scholarship funds that will be put towards the AOY award. It is not very likely that the DSG will turn a profit this year since it is a first-year event, but if so, that is what will we will do with proceeds.

The three previous winners of the Delaware Sports Athlete of the Year awards were Alex Faircloth from Caravel Academy, Brandon Brown from Middletown and Ryan Smith from Hodgson Vo-Tech, in chronological order. The previous female winners were Cameo Neeman from Ursuline Academy, Alison Stewart from Mt. Pleasant, and Jennifer Oakes from Padua Academy.

The Athlete of the Year award presentation is still the coolest thing we do. We surprise the winners (as best that we can) in prize patrol fashion. It takes a lot of planning once we finalize the winners, so please keep that in mind when the voting ends because we don't announce the winners and then try to surprise them.

I also realize that there are duplicate votes on the website, but in reality there isn’t since we make use of IP trackers and one other secret program to track the voting procedures. But we also make use of the television show to solicit votes and a panel of us here at Delaware Sports will ultimately make the final call.

We like the idea of having viewers and readers help with the voting process though because our philosophy has always called for interactive features.

The Athlete of the Year is not restricted to high school athletes of course. Since our show features more high school athletes than any other, it just figures that is how it would work out. So feel free to nominate a college athlete or an adult athlete or junior high athlete also if there is someone you feel stands out in a crowd. Just e-mail me to do so.

That’s it for now!