Freddogg Off The Chain

I was an assistant track coach at the Mitchell School in Haverford Pennsylvania in April of 1975 watching the Penn Relays on a Saturday morning. The track was systematically stocked and stacked with three hours of high school boy’s mile relay races. Legendary announcer Jack O’Reilly called races like he was at Pamlico.
“We have a race ladies and gentlemen heading into the anchor it is Brooklyn Tech, Calibar, Paramus,Cape Henlopen..a pause and O’Reilly said, ”Cape Henlopen, I love saying that name.”
My wife turned to me and asked, ”didn’t you apply there? Cape Henlopen? I’m sure I remember addressing an envelope to Cape Henlopen? By the way, where is Cape Henlopen?”
The next year I was back at the Penn Relays as the Head Track Coach at Cape Henlopen, in Lewes, Delaware, you know, the Ferry? We would go on to win a Division Two Delaware State Championship in the Spring of 1976 and in 1978 I was back at Penn with my best team, a team of gifted runners and jumpers.
A Friday morning and somehow after picking students up at 4:30 a.m.-Linwood had an actual “Moo Cow” tied to the front porch of his country trailer-we were fighting a traffic jam of bodies inside Franklin Field ,trying to get to the Paddock area to clerk in for the running of the 4 by 100 meter relay.
Down the steps we went, the athletes in Frank Purdue cotton gold action wear sweat suits. “Give your sweets to Shelrita and wait for them to call you into the paddock,”I said.
Tracy undid his draw string looked down inside his pants and said with the utmost surprise and disappointment,” Dam”!
‘Sounds like a personal problem,” I joked. “I forget my pants coach! Oh man, I swear I put them on before I left the house.”
I looked at Shelrita who was Tracy’s girl friend. She was wearing one of those girl’s uniforms of the late seventies with bloomer type pants that made everyone look like an adult dressed as a diapered New Year’s Eve baby. But the pants were the right color gold.
“Shelrita take Mr. Slacks and Jacks into that tunnel and when you come out I want him wearing your pants and you his sweats. They each looked astonished and before they could argue anything I barked, ”Do I look like I’m kidding? Do you see a kidding person standing here? And Linwood, what is with the cow? “
Into the tunnel they went and when Tracy, a beautifully fit dark skinned runner, came out of the tunnel it was just the dumbest and funniest thing anyone had ever seen. I saw Jamaican guys pointing and laughing. I felt like the guy about to burst out laughing at a funeral.
We hit the track with a medium fast team that could possible break 44 seconds but couldn’t push the real fast guys. Tracy was on the third leg dead in the heart of Bear Alley a dark part of the stadium usually buried under a cloud of Marijuana smoke which shrouded adult aficionados who looked for the unusual like the 45 second white guy or the guy tying up because he took it out too fast or the sprinter in a girls uniform. It was the first Friday morning spontaneous crowd giggle in Relays history
Tracy got the stick and he looked great and we were running well. But it was hilarious and he was practically signing autographs when the race was over. I saw Shelrita coming out of Foodline last week. She is 46 years old. We hugged and both laughed like we always do when we see each other. Those who internalized the image still wake up in the middle of the night laughing 28 years later. Or maybe that’s just me?