Editor’s Note: The piece below was published in The Weekly’s 2019 “Joke Issue.” All content, quotations, and other features are entirely fictitious. 

As the Varsity girls’ soccer team went through their normal warm ups on a crisp late March afternoon, everything seemed to be going normally. Through passing drills, girls engaged in their typical banter. The seniors began to gush about favorite fruits, mangos and cucumbers, juniors slept, and the sophomores gossiped a little too loudly about their Las Fuentes excursions. We don’t really know what the freshmen were talking about.

But as time dragged on, confusion started to set in. The early spring sun was starting to set, and there was still no sign of their opponent. Where was the other team?

New Varsity Head Coach Patrick Stanton started to pull up the Spring Schedule to identify their missing opponent, for he was confused as well. Stanton explained that old coach Neil Curran used to handle the logistical side of things, as well as “everything else.”

Stanton realized that Starks never sent out a Spring Schedule, something that is routinely received by coaches two weeks before each team’s season starts.

Overachieving soccer players, junior Natalie Daskal and sophomore Amelia Hoerr, ran to Starks’ office to complain. When they arrived, they found Starks at his desk making friendship bracelets for the boys’ basketball team sleepover.

Upon hearing the current situation, Starks immediately rose from his seat. “I knew I forgot about something!” he said. He quickly disappeared out the door, leaving Daskal and Hoerr.

Later on, Starks expressed the circumstances that lead to him forgetting to schedule games for the soccer team. “I was just so caught up in everything,” Starks said. “It’s been really hectic.”

Starks declined to answer what made things so “hectic.”

A relatively similar situation to the girl’s soccer team occurred with the girl’s softball team. On March 28th, they showed up to the Lincoln Park diamond to face Latin. They were up by 2 runs in the seventh inning when they looked more closely at their opponents.

It was junior Captain Estelle Heltzer that realized the team they were playing was actually a group of preschoolers from Lincoln Park Preschool, who happened to be on the diamond for recess. “I knew something wasn’t right when we started to win,” Heltzer said. “It seemed fishy.”

Starks reflects on his decision. “Lol oops,” Starks said.

Not all teams had similar frustrating experiences to the soccer and softball teams. In fact, one team didn’t even realize the scheduling mishap. The Boys baseball team went their entire season showing up to empty fields, warming up for 45 minutes, and then leaving. “I knew we were forgetting something,” sophomore 1st basemen Ethan Neff said. “I just couldn’t put my finger on it.”

When asked about their thought on the scandal, Senior Captain Zach Lending spoke for the whole baseball team when he said, “Gg Bobby, Gg.”