ABOUT PHIL: Phil loves to play basketball, but he really doesn’t much care for running. These two activities would seem to be inseparable, but Phil has found a work-around: by throwing the ball all the way across the court from under his own goal, he gets to play offense without being troubled to actually move anywhere. The game is interesting when Phil is on the same team as Erik, because Erik has a complimentary attribute, in that he likes to sprint down the court and try to catch the Hail Mary from Phil. When these two are on the same team, it can seem as though they are enjoying an exclusive game of football amidst a basketball game, and phrases like “pass-interference” and “first down” are overheard.
On those occasions when Phil is actually playing offense on the appropriate side of the court, he is generally a fundamentally sound and diplomatic participant, sort of the Yao Ming of lunch-time basketball. He is very tricky to guard, because he is a proficient shooter, and also the tallest lunch-sketballer. He knows that at any time, he can find a place in the defensive zone where he will have a pronounced height advantage.
Phil’s height and savvy can create such mis-matches that occasionally teams have been known to switch to the rare “box-and-one” zone (or triangle-and-one, or sometimes the famous “line-segment-and-one”, depending on the number of players) , having one player follow Phil all over the place. This defense is used sparingly, because Phil considers it tantamount to cheating. Due to various political considerations, the issue is being treated with delicacy. Only a handful of players are willing and/or able to guard Phil with any success. Surprisingly, Gary is one of them. Sort of. Gary operates under the assumption that there is some sort of fouling-amnesty granted to those with height adequately disproportionate to Phil. Gary considers himself in possession of an inalienable right to foul Phil at all times.
PLAYER STATS
NAME: Phil, aka “Foul Here!”
HEIGHT: At least 6″ taller than anybody else out there.
WHITE STUFF ON NOSE: Diaper cream.
BLOCKS: Many of them.
PASSER RATING: 80.5
IMPORTANT FACTS: He’s really great at basketball! Also, Phil signs some important timesheets around here.
No description of Phil would be complete without mentioning his signature catch-phrase, “Foul here!”. This is what Phil invariably says when somebody hits him while he’s shooting (and so he says this quite often). The call of one in the process of being fouled is properly known in basketball parlance to be “And 1”, but Phil eschews the phrase, perhaps unable to reconcile the incongruity between the reality of the situation as governed by Lunchsketball’s rules, and the entitlement to a free-throw that may be inferred literally to one familiar with the etymology of the phrase “And 1”. Where others may cry “got it”, “hold up”, or just “foul”, Phil raises his voice in a distinctive cry, and all present understand what happened: Foul. There.
Phil probably leads the league in blocks-per-game. This brews a sort of collective frustration amongst the other players, and so when Phil himself gets blocked, it is a special occasion for everyone. There are Oohs and Aahs, and then a sort of a pause in the game while everybody recounts the event. Somebody will usually get caught up in the moment and make some type of regrettable comment about what type of abusive relationship may be inferred to exist between Phil and the gentleman who made the block. Phil handles this all fairly well, and remains undeterred from his shot-swatting ways.
lunchsketball 