Basketball Diaries Part IV- The Super Fans

(This is kind of the last back story part before things get good.)

At the time I decided that the best course of action was to forget about all this and go watch my friends that played on the boy’s basketball team. As that season got underway it became clear that some of my friends were having problems with the coach.

My one friend Mike (names have been changed) was punished because he played summer league baseball instead of basketball. The coach would play him sporadically even though he carved up the first team in practice and did well in the games. A few times he would put him in with ten seconds left in the game just to be a prick.

My other “friend” Marty, (the one who fucked a retarded girl) was one of the better players on the team but the coach would get upset at his shot selection, when he dunked, and pretty much anything else.
The coach was a major league dick. He berated players, clearly played favorites, was really political, and did everything he could to make everyone miserable. (Apparently miserable players win more… or something.) For the first time ever players began to quit the team throughout the season. By the end of the season over six players would quit the team including three out of their top eight players. I guess having a coach crack a chalkboard by throwing a basketball at it and berating you for hours has a tendency to make you hate the sport.

I hate John Heder

Marty was one of the first to quit. He ended up going to games with us where we would bring a sign that showed Mike at the end of the bench picking splinters out of his ass. (It was classic artwork if I do say so myself.) We knew that this didn’t help Mike’s cause but he was hell bent on quitting so I don’t think he cared. He would have quit a few weeks into the season except for if he did quit for any reason other than academic or health related he wouldn’t be able to play baseball in the spring. (He was probably one of the better players in the state.)

After bringing the sign to a few games we were halted at the entrance to the gym one day from bringing it in. The staff person said the coach didn’t want that in the gym.  We got into a giant argument with the staff member, which led to members of the school’s administration coming over and saying that we were causing a distraction and weren’t allowed to bring the sign in.  Meanwhile other people were bringing signs for other people that were sitting the bench and were along the same lines of what we were doing. However they weren’t taken away because we weren’t holding them. This pissed us off, we stopped going to home games and started to go to only road ones bringing the sign and sitting behind the bench chanting for Mike to go into the game.

I should have went with the "how is your wife and my kid" sign

As other players quit they joined us at the games and sat with us. At this point we were attending more out of spite than anything else. Mike grew to the point where he hated playing so bad that he tanked a couple of calculus tests to get his grade to where he was failing so he could leave the team without missing baseball.
Once Mike was off of the team we hardly went to watch any games. We felt like our work was done and we had liberated him.

The basketball season finished without incident, well except when a cheerleader was dropped during a show.

Everything was fine until spring rolled around.

Up Next: No graduation for you

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