Super on the court

Super heroes wear strange costumes, are strong, fast, and can sometimes fly or even shapeshift. Wearing masks doesn’t do much to hide their identities; moviegoers can always tell. 

So can the Flyer Faithful. 

Two basketball players — grad student Zed Key (forward on the men’s team) and junior Nayo Lear (guard on the women’s team) — had a clear reason for wearing masks earlier this season: face protection. Key was injured in August; and Lear, in November.

Just as technology has improved movie special effects for superheroes, it has improved protective masks for athletes. When UD men’s team guard Rodney Chatman ’21 wore a mask in 2019 because of a facial fracture, the process of making it was “long, costly, messy and slow,” said UD athletic trainer Mike Mulcahey. Now a phone app can scan a face, and a mask can be manufactured in two or three days.

On the superhero front, Lear’s favorites are Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Chris Hemsworth’s Thor. It’s not known whether 7 and Scat, the python and cat who live with Key, are animals that turn themselves into superheroes, but we’re sure they wish they could wear masks as cool as these.