Findale Basketball: An Oral History 1,2

During the 2018 season of the Findale Summer Recreation Basketball an incident occured that shook the entire town, led to multiple lawsuits and ultimately lead to the Mayor cleaning house and firing the entire recreation department. As the investigation of the incident shed light on more of the happenings of what went on that summer it became clearer and clearer that the structure of league and the lack of supervision of the volunteers allowed them to run unabated as they mocked children, ran a low budget point shaving scheme and cheated to win games in a “just for fun” youth basketball league. In order to understand fully what happened to allow these things to happen, first a full understanding of the environment of the town and the setup of the league that lulled the community into a false sense of security.

Jett Cordova, Hurricanes Coach, 19: Findale. What a place. I’m pretty sure I could walk around with my social security card and a bag of diamonds announcing it with a megaphone and the only thing that would happen is people complimenting me on my wealth and knowing my identity.

Davy Hatch, Tigers Coach, 21: I think someone jay-walked once. It was a front page story for the next week. I would say it was a slow news week, but it was literally the only crime here since, I don’t know, its inception?

Scott Dorchester, League Organizer, 27: The city of Findale has a population of about twenty-five thousand people. The majority of the population is caucasian but there is a rising Indian population. And there are beautiful parks all over the area. The town’s slogan is literally “The grass is always greener here.”

Flex, Bulls Coach, 22: It’s like Eagleton from Parks and Rec except we don’t go broke in season six because we ran out of ideas.

Scott Dorchester: But seriously, the parks are amazing here. Like I know Central Park is probably the most iconic park in America but the West Lake Pond Park off Spots Road is America’s hidden gem.

Billy Taylor, Bloodthirst Coach, 23: Did Scott gush about the parks during his interview? I bet he did. Just nod if he did. Come on. Yes! I knew it. I would love to look at WLP (West Lake Pond Park) through whatever drunken haze that he does. The place is a shithole. Like there is a literal hole full of shit. Chelsey fell in it once when she was trying to find a spot to give some kid head.

Chelsey Oakley, Falcons Coach, 21: I hate WLP. It just isn’t my favorite place.

Davy Hatch: She fell into a shit hole. How does that even happen? A hole full of entirely shit! She won’t talk about it but she called the township and they refused to acknowledge it because a shit hole would signify that we have a homeless people which would really just drive down the property value which is just about the only thing that anyone cares about around here.

Scott Dorchester: A shit hole? I haven’t heard anything about that. I’ve been working for the department for six years and I volunteered before that so I would have known about something like that.

Billy Taylor: Scott knows about the shit hole. He took Chelsey’s call. She swears by it but they both figured out it was easier to deny the existence of the event for the best of Chelsey’s reputation and the town’s. But the park isn’t anything special besides the basketball court. Even that has cracks that have been sealed time after time.

Tara Marcus, Gamblers Coach, 19: The park isn’t special, nothing about this town is special. Jesus Christ I sound like I’m in Simple Plan. Gross. Sure it's nice but its nice for, like, middle aged family with one spoiled brat. Really the only thing I did during high school was get drunk in the woods behind the Applebee’s until that widow bitch in the house nearby called the cops on us.

Stan Sykes, Cuddlebunnies Coach, 19: Holy shit this place is boring.The only thing to do is hit up Jett Cordova, buy some weed and smoke it in the woods until Tara screams Livin’ on a Prayer at the top of her lungs and we have to make a run for it. Really sobers you up.

Jett Cordova: No comment.

The 2018 season was the final step in a change that Findale Basketball Association was making to phase out parent coaches that tended to cause more problem when it came to playing time, verbally (and sometimes physically) abusing referees and understanding that the games were for fun and the children’s enjoyment of the game. It was the first season that none of the coaches were parents.

Scott Dorchester: The Findale Basketball Association is run by employees of the township recreation department and mostly volunteer coaches. However, ever since we abandoned asking the parents to coach after what most people refer to as the “Bobby Knight” incident, my boss and I agreed it was best to seek an alternative to the parents, thus we moved to recruiting high school and college aged coaches to mixed results.

Billy Taylor: Oh my God. The Bobby Knight incident was the craziest shit I have seen since Britney Spears melted down and shaved her head.

Scott Dorchester: As a cost cutting move, the recreation department does not hire certified referees to officiate the games. Instead, we use basketball players who know the rules of the game. This way we can pay them 15 dollars a game instead of 35. It allows us to keep the prices of the league down.

Billy Taylor: I’m pretty sure Scott took the difference in the rates of experienced refs versus amataur ones and pocketed the money.

Scott Dorchester: Anyway, we had a parent four years ago, Chester Wilson, who got worked up over a series of missed calls that he shoved a parent out of a chair the parent was sitting in and hurled it over at one of the refs and yelled “Can you see the fucking contact now you junior college reject?”

Billy Taylor: Have you ever seen those moments in comedy movies where a baby starts crying after the main character does something? I thought that was just a movie thing. Turns out, it also happened when a divorced father tries to coach basketball to reconnect with his son and steals a move from the most iconic coach ever.

Miles Eckerl Knights Coach, 17: He was my coach that year, I’m surprised it took him to the fifth game to snap. Dude was a ticking time bomb of guilt, anger and a side of bad parenting. He tried to connect to his son by taking my playing time away. I’m glad he got arrested last year.

Billy Taylor: You know when a minor league baseball coach melts down and they take home plate and cover it in dirt of just pull it from the ground and take it with them and they play that shit over and over again on Sportscenter? If someone managed to record it, it would be the most watched thing on Youtube. He went after the ref, who was seventeen! Seventeen and Wilson tried assaulting him. He then managed to key three cars in the parking lot because he didn’t know which one was the kid’s. The cops got there fast. I mean, what else do they have to do in Findale?

Scott Dorchester: Naturally, after that there was a clear need to change things up. So, we overcorrected. At that time, Billy Taylor was 18 and was on his second year of coaching in the league. He was full of energy and didn’t complain about anything. He was the perfect coach for a rec league so we thought all young coaches would make sure something like the Chester Wilson incident never happened again. Obviously, that was not the case, if it was we would not be sitting here.

Jett Cordova: I think I remember my mom saying that he got arrested for something bad. But she would never give me the details.

The “Bobby Knight” incident lead to a change to the structure of the league. Billy Taylor was already coaching as a nineteen year old who had a passion for the game and slowly but surely the other seven coaching spots in the league were replaced by a either permanent or temporary replacements.

Scott Dorchester: Well there is Davy Hatch, who has been working with the rec department since he was in high school and has always been a strong and loyal employee. He can be a little tough with the kids at times, but they seem to like him. He was an obvious fit for the role.

Billy Taylor: Fuck Davy Hatch.

Tara Marcus: Davy is so cool. He doesn’t really text back though. So not like totally cool, but he gets it. Did you know he can play Wonderwall on his guitar?

Jett Cordova: He’s fine, kind of a dick when it comes to girls, like he doesn’t text Tara back, which makes it so she doesn’t text me back. And I just can’t stand for that.. After what he did to Billy, I have no choice but to respect him on more than just a superficial level though. Guy knows how to win a pissing contest.

Davy Hatch: I broke my phone throwing it against a brick wall after I lost to Stan.

Billy Taylor: Davy Hatch is like if you took that literal shithole that Chelsey fell into and expanded it to the borders of Findale. And with the border of the hole expanding so does the gross excessive shit in, said, shithole. And that shit is Davy Hatch.

Miles Eckert: Davy is a great coach. I actually look up to him. He was in my older brother’s grade and they would hang out at my house. He always ignored me and well he still ignores me now. But since we’re coaching in the same league, it’s like we’re hanging out right? Right? You can tell me, this doesn’t just have to be a one way interview. Davy and I hang out right?

Flex: Davy is an asshole. But he can coach. I once heard him say his life motto is “making sure no one else is happy but me.”

Zeke Fielding, Referee, 18: I started to turn on Davy the game he stole the keys to my car after I reffed his game and he poured out three milkshakes in my car. He just left a note that said “Your move.”

Miles Eckert: You don’t have to say anything. Davy and I are friends. That’s it. That’s the end.

Davy Hatch: Who is Miles Eckert?

Chelsey Oakley: Miles? Oh Miles! Yeah, yeah I know Miles. He’s that mousy high schooler that talks about how he had a threesome in the library and then another girl joined in. Oh my God he would say anything to get us to look at him. It’s a shame that didn’t translate to coaching. He would just stand there while the kids played.

Priya Shah, Scorekeeper, 18: Working the games Miles coached was perversely entertaining. There was a timeout that he just stood there, like, dead silent as his kids looked at him waiting for him to speak. He never did. He may have started crying but I’m not sure.

Jett Cordova: Miles was in an elective with me, my senior year of high school last year, he sat in the back of the classroom. He did not say a word. I don’t know how he got this gig, but it does not suit him.

Chelsey Oakley: I once had to intervene because a group of middle school boys were picking on him between games. He is like a defenseless puppy dog. You just have to help because you feel bad.

Stan Sykes: Oh man! That one time with the big bully middle schooler. Shoot, what’s his name. He was on Flex’s team, Garrett Jackson. He told Miles he looked like a Broke dick Mr. Rogers crossed with a Logan Paul wannabe. Miles just stood there and took it. Chelsey had to come in and tell the kid his future options in a significant other would be limited to a blow up doll and Hentai porn. I thought it was aggressive but Miles was crying and someone had to step in.

Billy Taylor: Chelsey is probably the only good person coaching in the league. All of us, and I mean all of us, including Scott were watching this kid tear Miles to shreds. Cordova even recorded it and posted it everywhere. But that is just who Chelsey is. She stands up for people simply because it's the right thing to do.

Davy Hatch: I’m pretty sure that Chelsey was the one that turned us in when we were shaving points to make a little money on this stupid league. She is so self-righteous, its obnoxious.

Miles Eckert: I’ve always like Chelsey. Can’t really point to a specific reason.

Jett Cordova: She had to buy Miles an ice cream cone afterwards to get him to stop crying. Christ.

Flex: She knocked me out of the playoffs. I fucking hate the Slayback twins.

Scott Dorchester: I’m not entirely sure what Flex’s name is. I’ve only ever known him as Flex. I’m afraid to ask. He’s massive. He’s like a rock that got turned into a human being that can make the ground shake when he moves.

BIlly Taylor: No. No one knows Flex’s real name. He joined the yearbook club in high school so he could erase his real name from any sort of record. So to answer the follow up question before you ask it, yes. He has been this big since his freshman year of high school. He got detention in high school for breaking, like, five desks. It really wasn’t his fault. I’m pretty sure his muscles have an orbit, he can’t be contained to a desk meant for normal fifteen year olds.

Chelsey Oakley: Flex is great. He’s got that gentle giant thing going on about him. He’s really kind, but no one thinks about crossing him or looking at him the wrong way because he’s looks like a human version of an alligator.

Miles Eckert: I heard he once flipped a truck over for cutting him off on the highway once.

Flex: I don’t know where any of the rumors about me come from.

Davy Hatch: Then when he flipped the truck, he ripped off the door and swung the driver around like Harrison Bergeron did to those musicians. Truly a remarkable feat of human strength and rage. They say those people were never heard from again.

Stan Sykes: I missed the coaches meeting where we got the team names and rosters because I was terrified of sitting across from Flex and looking at him the wrong way. Fleeing the country and establishing a new identity is getting harder and harder.

Tara Marcus: Stan freaks out about everything. I went to pick him up for the coaches meeting at the beginning of the season and he refused to come outside. He stood in his front window texting me about how he was too scared of Flex to go. I told him “Flex isn’t going to rip you in half.” Besides it doesn’t take a genius to know that most of the rumors about Flex are started by Davy because he enjoys watching people be miserable.

Jett Cordova: Stan smokes weed with us every now and then. He gets more paranoid than anyone I’ve ever met. Jesus Christ. You should hear him, “Is that the government?” Every time. Because the government is concerned about teenagers smoking weed in the woods on a Thursday.

Stan Sykes: Paranoid. Nah. But, like,, who is going to hear this? I’m just wondering. It's no big deal. It would be nice to know.

Tara Marcus: Yeah...It would not be a stretch to say that Stan gets nervous every now and then.

Miles Eckert: I don’t understand how Stan is friends with Tara. She is cool. Like really cool. I can’t get her to look at me, meanwhile Stan jumped into a garbage can because he heard Flex argue a call and assumed Flex was coming after him. Doesn’t make sense.

Jett Cordova: Tara is so hot. Like god damn...But also, very smart and funny and other qualities that do not revolve around her appearance, which is slamming.

Stan Sykes: So anything I say about Tara is on the record? Okay. Tara is enthusiastic. When she gets an idea she dives right into it and nothing else matters but that.

Jett Cordova: People say that the point shaving idea was all mine. But no, no no no no. That was Tara. It was her and Jenna Marshall’s brain child.

Billy Taylor: She puts on this good girl disguise, but she is cunning. Her and Cordova together is more terrifying than Davy, a book of matches and an orphanage.

Tara Marcus: I bet everyone else is going to try and pin the point shaving thing on me right? That’s bullshit. I don’t want to throw Cordova under the bus, but it was all him and Zeke. Jenna and I did nothing.

Jett Cordova: It was Tara.

Zeke Fielding: It was Tara.

Jenna Marshall, Referee, 20: It was all Tara.

Tara Marcus: It was all Jett. Ask anyone he is so sketchy. He’s a weed dealer you know.

Davy Hatch: Yo, he sells the best stuff. I bought some off of him and made a brownie for Miles. Oh my God. It was amazing!

Billy Taylor: You know when someone strange enters the room and you feel the energy of the place shift? That’s what it feels like what Cordova shows up. I don’t know if it in a good way or a bad one, but it is just different.

Flex: My brother, Mini-Flex, isn’t allowed anywhere near Jett.

Scott Dorchester: I needed one more coach for the season and Tara told me to give it to Cordova. I knew it was a bad idea going in but I was in a tight spot. When he showed up to the coaches meeting I truly understood what a terrible mistake I made.