Cool Hand Luke

Parents of the Northern Kalamazoo Charlatans soccer club have been split into warring factions over how to address the actions of their former Director of Coaching, Luke Royalflush. The problems began in spring 2009 when the club’s treasurer, Richard Turpin, began to suspect that either he couldn’t count or American youth soccer was even more of a rip off than he had always suspected. His suspicions were further aroused when the DOC began showing up for the club’s infrequent practice sessions in a brand new Cadillac Escalade accompanied by an exotic dancer named Tipper Inergarterbelt, whom he introduced as the new Speed and Agility trainer. Matters came to a head when the club’s U15 girls reached the state cup final in spite of the DOC having been AWOL for 8 weeks. The team was coached in the final by a parent stand-in who was roundly criticized by the opposing coach for being ‘just a dad without any professional qualifications’ after the Charlatans kicked his professional ass 7-1 in a runaway victory.

Following the game the club wanted to mark the girl’s achievement by patronizing them with a commemorative t-shirt. It was then revealed that there wasn’t enough money in the club coffers to buy the t-shirts and that the DOC had absconded with the cash to feed his gambling habit.

At that point, in an act of unparalleled generosity, the founder of the Charlatans movement, Sandy Barmey, announced that he would fund the t-shirts entirely as a gift out of his own pocket, provided the NKC franchise was returned to him, the parents signed a waiver giving up any rights to legal action against him, each parent wrote a glowing testimonial about his coaching methods, and the local media left the story well alone.

DOC Royalflush was finally traced to a room on the 17th floor of a Las Vegas hotel above the casino where he had gambled the dues paid by each of these poor deprived kids. At the time the police broke down his hotel room door Royalflush was in the company of a cocktail waitress named Mandy Melons with a mountain of freshly cut cocaine on the coffee table and hundreds of thousands of dollars of the money he had won strewn around the room. Royalflush himself was naked, on the balcony of the room, screaming “King of the World!” and “You can shove your Cryuff Turns up your bottom!”

Sandy Barmey immediately released a 50,000 word press release in which he predicted that the USA would win the 2014 world cup now that one of the “finest trainers in soccer” was back leading our kids into the next generation. Team manager Tina Overbearing suggested that the money Royalflush had won rightfully belonged to the club and should be split evenly amongst the parents with the exception of Nicole Pauper’s mom who did not have her dues up to date. Rebel parent Tony Holierthanthou suggested that this was not the type of role model we wanted for our kids. Cocktail waitress Mandy Melons claimed she had placed the winning bet and the money was hers. Nicolas Synical wanted to let the money go and use the experience as a “lesson of the evils of the Charlatans approach to soccer which I have been opposed to for 20 years”.

The matter is now in the hands of circuit court Judge George Easilyswayed who will try to determine if anyone comes out of the whole sordid matter looking less of a rat fink than anyone else. All the concerned adults will attend his courtroom on 15th May 2010. A pick up soccer tournament will be held on fields adjacent to the courtroom to keep the kids occupied while the court is in session. The kids will while away the hours with a ball at their feet whilst the adults play out the real fun and games.