Ramblings 57

 February 27, 2002

by Marshal Manlove
Editor

First, let me warn you that there may be some political undertones in parts of this week’s mess. There are certainly some critical comparisons that can be made to certain political philosophies and sports. Quite frankly, I see signs that there are some attitudes that are leaning a little "left" that, if not attended to, could very likely lessen the quality and the integrity of our cherished athletic endeavors. But more of that later if I still am as fired up as I am now.

One of the girl’s basketball tournament first-round games that should be interesting to watch will be the Ursuline-Tower Hill game. The Mills cousins Megan from Tower Hill and Kate from Ursuline will compete against each other for bragging rights and the right to face Caesar Rodney in the second round where either team has a shot for a win. I’ve read some negative message board posts about the Raiders making the tournament with a losing record. But they play a tough out-of-state schedule that enabled them to pick up more bonus points. Caravel does the same thing.

Both of these teams are a full year away from advancing deep into the tournament though. Both are young and inexperienced right now, but there is enough talent on both teams. The Mills girls are both solid. Tower Hill has the freshman point guard Nikki White who will make an all-state team or two before she is done as will Raider freshman Sarah Williams.

It is now time to see which Padua and Glasgow team will show up now that the games truly count. Both have been inconsistent all year long but both have some great players. Padua’s Katy Vogel and Kirsten Patton and Glasgow’s Lindsay Dyal and Kristin Hines are the players on which to focus.

Even though St. Marks beat A.I. duPont they fell one place behind the Tigers in the seedings. But the way I see that bracket, the Spartans end up with the better deal. With Padua, Glasgow, Caravel, and Seaford all in A.I.’s bracket, the Tigers potentially have the tougher tests ahead.

My final four predictions include Glasgow, A.I. duPont, St. Marks and Sanford reaching the Bob for the semifinal round.

But don’t listen to my predictions since I picked Jordan Sianni to win his fourth state wrestling championship. I still have to look at the tape, but from all accounts, Chris Collins was the man that evening and earned his way to the top of the podium. I read some message board accounts that Sianni was dealing with mononucleosis, but blood tests haven't been conducted yet, just scheduled.

So what lessons can everyone learn from that incident? First and most clearly, never, ever, take anyone for granted even though one’s past success can be a good indicator for the future. With the basketball tournaments a day away, how many times do you think we will see a clear favorite bow to a clear underdog? That sport is racked with these kind of upset stories.

What happened to Sussex Central in the wrestling championships? They were on a serious roll for a while there and sent eight wrestlers to the semis. Seven of them lost and the eighth lost in the final; no state champions at Sussex Central this year!

I had the pleasure of witnessing five of the eight new state records set at the boy’s and girl’s swimming championships this past weekend. I now have almost all of the girl’s state records on tape. The two that I don’t have are the ones set by Kristina MacLeish in the preliminary races. But she did beat her records from last year in the finals again this year, so in a way I can still say that I have those as well.

And what can one say about Mt. Pleasant’s Kaitlyn Brady right now? She has four of the eight individual state swimming records now. She added the 100 back and 100 butterfly to her 50 and 100 freestyle records. She broke the 100 fly twice in this meet. So she is even better than herself! We are not worthy enough to stand in her presence any longer.

Now for some perspective on how Brady and MacLeish compare to swimmers in the 15-16 year-old age bracket based on 2001 times from USA Swimming. MacLeish’s 1:50.86 in the 200 Freestyle is 2 full seconds behind the best time of 1:48.66 logged by someone named Mary Descenza. However, had this been 1973, Kristina’s time would have broken the world record held at that time by Australia’s Shane Gould (thought I would toss that in there.) The US Open record is 1:43.08.

The 500 freestyle time of 4:44.04 swam by Adrienne Binder from Calfornia would have won our boy’s state title this year. MacLeish swam a 4:56.30, which is a bit behind Janet Evan’s all-time US record of 4:34.39 set in 1990 when Evans was swimming with Stanford University.
Brady broke the state record in the 100 backstroke with a new time of 56.58. The best time in 2001 was 54.55 and Natalie Coughlin who swam a 51.23 in 2001 holds the US Open record.

The junior Green Knight also broke our state record in the 100 Butterfly with a 56.12. Someone named Dana Kirk in 2001 logged a 52.92.

So there is plenty of room for improvement despite the goddess-like performances by both of these high school juniors. It is why they train and compete year round.

In the boy’s basketball tournament I see less chance of upset than in the girl’s tournament. I like Sanford, Sallies, Hodgson, and St. E’s as the final four though I think Newark and St. Marks are the teams that could do the most damage to other team’s egos. And they are both in the Hodgson and St. Elizabeth bracket.

This is the tournament that the Sanford Warriors need to win to prove that their boy’s program is worthy of continuing high praise. The past couple of years have produced disappointing finishes despite outstanding regular seasons and for their sake they truly need to win here. That, unfortunately, puts a lot of pressure on the Warriors and could therefore make them vulnerable in a semifinal game. It would be a complete shock, however, if they were to be knocked off prior to the semifinal round.

One of the other debates about the basketball tournaments is the amount of teams that can participate. Over 50% of all of the schools eligible make the tournament which is a higher percentage than the NHL, a system that most everyone laughs at now.

One of the arguments for the large amount of teams is that this way more teams gain playoff "experience." We’ll just dismiss that one right away. The only teams that should get playoff experience are the best teams in the league. And the idea should be to become the best team in the league, period, dot, case closed. We never want to just give everybody a chance in a situation like this because then why even bother playing a regular season to start with.

How would giving more teams a berth to the playoffs promote competition?

We need to promote competition almost every single time a league or a team is organized after the age of reasoning, which is seven years old. That is how we improve our times and distances and the way we play defense and offense. Giving more people a chance, or "equaling the playing field" promotes mediocrity. Boy, wouldn’t other countries just love to see us promoting mediocrity? Wouldn’t a Socialist or a Communist or some Dictatorial government have an ultimate goal of having its people mediocre and unwilling to "go the extra mile" to win or improve? That type of government and philosophy, which was introduced to us by the Russians, didn’t work for them and hasn’t worked for anyone who is a subject of that type of government ever.

My plan would be to cut the basketball tournaments to 16 at most, which is still a rather high percentage for a small state like ours. This way, if a team or school wanted to actually compete in a tournament, or win a tournament, they would HAVE TO PLAY BETTER! They would have to WORK HARDER. They would have to DO WHAT IT TAKES TO IMPROVE THE LEVEL OF THEIR PLAY.

But it isn’t in our basic nature to wish to work harder or inflict the necessary pain and sacrifice upon ourselves that it takes to win. Our true nature, if left unmotivated, would have us do whatever it takes to make things easier for us and more comfy. That is one reason why citizens of our country are heavier than all of the other citizens of countries around the world. This is why we need driven and motivated people as coaches of our teams and teachers in our schools who understand these truly successful methods of improving a team or a society.

Win, win, and win. Don’t cheat, play hard, play your best, work your hardest, then work harder and then opportunities will seem to magically appear. This is the American way; it is why we have the greatest country in the history of civilization and we can’t forget that. We also have to teach it and pass it forward, which is what I’m trying to say here somehow. I hope I’ve said it somewhat coherently. Just say "no" to more teams in our tournaments.

On Saturday March 9 at 10:00 a.m. come on down to the Howard Johnson Inn and Suites on Rt. 896 in Newark to watch us award our third All-Heart Team awards. There are eight winners of the 2002 awards who will receive their plaque after the person who nominated them for the award talks passionately about why they unselfishly took time out of their lives to prepare an essay about the nominee. The people who have made these nominations are, in my eyes, equally as honorable for doing such a thing. So seriously, come down to watch this unfold because the prior two award presentations had moments that were heart-warming and tear jerking.
I will release the winners names soon to the rest of the media, most of which will ignore them, and also post the winners names on the site with capsules and pictures to come soon thereafter.

There are already two names nominated and sure locks for the 4^th Delaware Sports All-Heart Team awards, whenever they will be awarded. I spoke of William Penn wrestler Dustin Craighton last week. He broke a tooth in the middle of his Blue Hen Conference championship match with Hodgson’s Tyler Smith yet continued to press forward and even win his match.

Now add the name of St. Mark’s Patrick Atkinson to that list. After already dealing with a back problem that may require a procedure to fix, he had surgery on his knee just a couple days before he had to wrestle for the state championship. In fact, I heard he was out for good and then saw his name come across the e-mail box as a semifinalist. He appears to be guaranteed one of our awards as soon as they come out again.

We will attend a few of the first and second round basketball games to tape for the TV show and for website pictures. On Saturday we will head over to the U of DE to tape the State Indoor Track and Field Championships. I’m sure I will see some of you out there so say hello if we run into each other.

Marshal Manlove