The Charger, February 2017
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Every weekend from fall to winter, high school gyms and recreational centers are filled with mostly sub-par basketball players and loyal fans. The people are not there to see a high school basketball game or even to play themselves. The fans go to these gyms to witness the phenomenon of recreational basketball. During basketball season in Charlotte, places like local high school, South Meck, play host to one of the biggest rec leagues in the city, the Park Sharon League.
In an interview with The Charger Park Sharon League commissioner's son Patrick Plott, he said that, “Rec basketball is just a great way to have fun with friends and is the perfect alternative for kids who cannot or do not want to play basketball for an AAU team or their school team.” Recreational basketball in Charlotte, North Carolina has developed an almost cult-like following and is an opportunity for kids who do not play on their high school teams to get a chance to take part in the competitive spectrum that is basketball while having fun in a loose environment.
In Charlotte, there are two main leagues, the Park Sharon League and the South Charlotte Recreational Association, or SCRA. There is not much of a rivalry, but teams from both leagues compete against each other, and each league plays for the same trophy. The teams play ten regular season games and then can have up to four games in the playoffs.
Chad Jorgensen has played in the South Charlotte league for eight years and is a four time league champion. The Charger had a chance to talk to the recreational basketball veteran about the growth in popularity for recreational basketball in Charlotte, “It has been crazy, I have played Rec basketball for so long, and when I was a kid it would just be my parents at the game, but now our team has a legitimate fan section. It has been incredible to see the league develop like this.”
“The thing about SCRA is it is all one big joke and some guys wear colorful shoes and others have a bunch of accessories, it’s all about the accessories..." Chad Jorgensen
Jorgensen also had some things to say on why Rec basketball has the following it does and why people love it. He says, ”I think it got really big when when I got to high school. We all knew we weren’t good at basketball, so it was just some friends wearing headbands and shooting sleeves playing basketball together.” He went on, “The thing about SCRA is it is all one big joke, some guys wear colorful shoes and others have a bunch of accessories, it’s all about the accessories. I think people who love Rec basketball do because it is all the fun of semi-competitive basketball without the seriousness of playing for your school team.”
The teams can be coached by anyone, but most teams opt to have a friend “coach” their teams, and that duty is handled in a wide variety of ways. Some coaches have a clipboard in-hand and are a sarcastically giving their team orders, but most coaches just hang out on the bench. The only real duty of coaches in Rec ball is to play everybody at least a full quarter due to league requirements.
Recreational basketball has developed a rabid following. Every fall and winter throughout social media there are Rec team pages, player profiles, and even staged post game interviews. These accounts have a staggering number of followers for what it is, and according to multiple interviews with members of the leagues it has helped increase popularity. According to long time recreational basketball player, Coleman Salton, member of the SCRA league’s defending champions QC Slime, the social media presence in recreational basketball all started when QC Slime center Rocky Perez made his own player profile on Twitter in 2015. Per Salton, 'Perez’s player' profile proved too complimentary for the team's liking, so from then on the whole QC Slime squad collaborated on them, and the tradition has taken off from there. Almost every team in both leagues has player profiles and social media accounts now because of Perez. It started with a player profile, and teams have run with it. From practice reports to pre and post game interviews it is all online.
“We have a student section with weekly themes (always jersey night).” Coleman Salton
The fan sections at these games for the high school division are quite large for what these mostly friends of team members are going to see. At a Park Sharon Kings game, there were at least 20 people sitting behind the team's bench to cheer them on, a number which would surprise many. The Kings are not the only squad to have a strong fan base, Salton’s QC Slime have a solid turn outs for every game, he says, “We have a student section with weekly themes (always jersey night).”
High School recreational basketball leagues in Charlotte have transcended the times where it was just a player's parent that would go. These teams have cultivated fan bases through multi platforms, and recreational basketball is a growing phenomenon within the Charlotte high school aged community.
Max Lahn of the Park Sharon Kings preparing to enter the game
Phtoto cortesy of Patrick Plott
Everybody Can Play
By Jake Steiner
Profiling Recreational Basketball
Photo of a Park Sharon Kings game
Screen shot of the Park Sharon Kings's Instagram profile