DEAR COACH DEAR BENCHie: Memories of a Chase to a Basketball Championship

In Bob Cairns’ novel, Dear Coach/Dear Benchie---through a series of letters---an old coach and his pet benchwarmer take readers for a trip back in time as they remember and misremember their wild and wacky ride to a 1960 state high school championship basketball game. 

Along with the contention between the two, this run to the finals features laughs, drama, and a slam-bang crime-loaded ending that makes national news.

In these missives---with Benchie’s literary agent doing his damndest to keep the two combatants under control---we meet a cast of characters, benchwarmers who rival Slapshot’s Hanson Brothers.

The Washington Twins, George and Martha, two bench-warming wrecking machines come equipped with late-game talent. George, with an overbite that produces whistles that draw technicals from refs, is a lights-out shooter who refuses to play defense. His brother, Martha is an in your jock defensive wizard who as a shooter can’t throw it in the ocean. 

For starters, there’s Charlie Thompson an early day LeBron, who would later go on to play with the Harlem Globetrotters.

Crutchfield, the team’s power forward is having a problem keeping his head in the games due to his affair with the cheerleading coach.

All the while, Benchie, wearing those thick black-rimmed glasses is nailed to the bench, observing the action---a second set of eyes--- while serving as Coach’s “partner in crime.”

As Coach and Benchie correspond, their letters leading to the finals hit plenty of  anecdotal bumps along the way: “Where’s Charlie?”, “O’Hare’s Shaky Backboard,” “Spy Gate,” “The Washington Twins-Double Your Pleasure/Double Your Fun,” “Costumed Coach Undercover.” And “Coach and Benchie’s Big Day In Court.”

Great games, junk defenses, and then confusing game play in the finals that has Havercam, a Baltimore Tribune sports columnist, doing his damnedest to understand, why, in the end, key participants like Benchie and Coach might be interrogated by the state’s Governing Body for Athletics. 

As Coach and Benchie’s letters wrap the story and reveal the ending, Benchie stops to thank Rosey Roswell, his patient agent, for keeping his promise not to Google ahead to see how this story ends.

“Rosey, now, along with our letters, documenting this---dribble by dribble---exciting run to the championship game, there’s one thing you have to know about coach and me.

“All the bickering and squabbling along the way? Well, that’s just what guys like me and coach do. We bust balls because we can’t say I love you.”