Statboy: Chapter 2

Chapter 2
With time comes change, and change going into my second year was quite frequent. The first major change was that Mr. Downey, the man who hired me to do the book in the first place, left to coach the Varsity team at Chariho. Filling in for him was the Freshman coach, Mr. Bryan Caswell, who was poised and determined to bring home a state championship since Day 1 of the delayed school year. Since Mr. Caswell is my English teacher, he and I frequented on the topic of basketball.

In addition, some guys that I thought would be on Varsity this year left to do other things completely. James Murphy, J.R. Martin, Daniel Andsager, and Drew Drown all did not try out, leaving a lot of holes on the varsity squad. As time progressed towards tryouts, Mr. Sullivan was determined to drum up players to fill the voids.

After a few months of silence, and a weeklong anticipation of tryouts, the rosters for Varsity and JV were listed. The scene was hectic, as the many players who attempted to make it big with basketball, huddled around to see the lists.

VARSITY
JESSE BROWNE
ROBERT CARDIN
COREY DAUGHERTY
BENJAMIN ENGVALL
JACKSON FOSTER
KEVIN MANNIX (Swing)
NICHOLAS RAYMOND
MATTHEW ROTA (Swing)
JARED SILK (Swing)
CONNOR SLYE
JACK WENZEL

JUNIOR VARSITY
ZIN CHIULLI
BEN COOGAN
RICKY FORTIER
COLEMAN MAGLIO
KEVIN MANNIX (Swing)
MATT MESSORE
DAN O’BRIEN
MATT ROTA (Swing)
JARED SILK (Swing)

Both teams looked excellent as always, no holes needed to be filled immediately. With these players, the team looked as if they would win many games throughout the course of the season. Plus, with the passionate leadership of Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Caswell, the team would strive to go above and beyond.

Even though the team on the court looked solid and was set, a major part of the team was not filled yet. The accompanying managers were not determined yet. Ever since Linny and her passé left for college, I was sitting at the edge of my seat waiting to see who would be helping out. Initially, if the deadline was waning down, I would ask some people if they wanted to help out. There were two people I had in mind at the time. The first was a girl named Sarah, whom I had a massive crush on at the time. I concluded that I couldn’t get with Linny with the managerial position, and that the S.B. (Sarah Business, a term my friends coined for my interest) would be the next best option. The other person I had in mind was a shy freshman named Harrison, who kept to himself, but could do camera like a boss.

Ultimately, the decision was not in my hands. Instead, it lay within the hands of Mr. Sullivan. With the assistance of the players, the three new managers that would replace Linny and her passé were three girls named Katelyn Butler, Dani Fontaine, and Allie Neilan. I only knew the majority of those girls from the hallways at the high school, and they all seemed very nice. They all elected to do the camera duties, leaving me to go solo on the statistics.

Then, along came December 5, the day that everything started. The first scrimmage of the year would be played, with the Eagles playing the Classical Purple Knights. This would be the time to see how the team would perform against competition, and to get a taste of how things would run during the season. The score really didn’t matter, but all the players played well. Since Classical was in Division I, it was a good game for the morale of the team.

Despite there being stellar play on the court, the real highlight of the day came towards the end of halftime. During the half, I was shooting baskets with Coleman Maglio, one of my close friends and fellow basketball compadre, when the buzzer sounded to signify the end of the break. Daring as I was, I bolted to the scorer’s table, and did a full-out stage dive over the table, and landed headfirst on the bleacher. It was probably the only time in history that a scorekeeper was really airborne, other than in Quidditch.

Luckily, Mr. Sullivan was too focused on the game to notice, but Mr. Caswell did, and ranted about it to our English class. Like Mr. Sullivan, I possessed lots of charisma, but I needed to control that in an orderly way in order to avoid getting in trouble.

Four days later, the season would begin, and everyone got pumped.