Most Sebastopol events, especially repeat ones, appear on a local calendar each week. At the very least, they are listed somewhere, if only on a website. But some gatherings leave no written trail at all, and that makes them all the more mysterious and unknown to outsiders. And writing about them requires a different kind of research — in-person only. The weekly Wednesday night men’s basketball meetup at Community Church of Sebastopol is one such gathering.
On a recent Wednesday evening, Dr. David Fichman, of Graton, arrived at Community Church of Sebastopol a little after 7 pm. While he unlocked the gymnasium’s doors and readied the space for the evening’s activity, he spoke about the history of the meetup.
“I’ve been doing this at Community Church since 1989,” he said. Prior to that, he ran a basketball meetup on Tuesdays at Brook Haven school, which was damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake. In the decades since, he has regularly — some might say religiously (more on that below) — attended the meetup.
An important caveat: Until now, the meetup has only ever been advertised through acquaintances, by word of mouth.
As regulars arrived this Wednesday, basketballs began hitting the court, and informal warm-up practice began. The nightly routine remains simple: About 6-10 men show up on any given Wednesday starting at 7 pm and spend a few minutes shooting baskets until everyone arrives. At that point, they create random teams, with an effort to make them equal in terms of overall skill levels. Depending on how many people show up on a given night, the teams each have between three and five players. Three-on-three means playing half-court. Game play begins at 7:30 p.m.
On this night, about 10 men, ranging in age from their late teens to their late 60s, showed up. They were a friendly and respectful bunch, and their familiar camaraderie was apparent. Some of them were relative newcomers, having attended for a scant two or three years, while others, such as Dr. Fichman, were decades in. Some of them knew each other outside of the meetup, while others only knew each other on a first-name basis. Several of them agreed to be interviewed before the first game began.
Wink Racherbaumer, 59, of Sebastopol, has been showing up for 15 years. When asked what he gets out of the meetup and why he attends, he had this to say: “What I love about basketball is that it’s an opportunity for team sport, where players can study each other’s abilities, their weaknesses, and combat. And it’s also kind of a way to work out your shit, you know? It’s like, this is my church. And we all kind of get to do that together.
“There’s moments, it’s like spiritual, man, fucking spiritual,” he added. “I’m in the field, playing, running around and like … I’m gonna make a move, and the ball comes and finds me. And boom, the shot goes in. And it’s just like, you’re in the flow. And we all [have them]; there’s those moments like that in their magic. That’s what I love about it.”
Dr. Fichman echoed similar sentiments, saying that years ago he and a friend used the phrase “going to church” for attending the basketball meetup.
“Because it was kind of like our equivalent,” he said. “I mean, we’re not super religious, but it was one of those things. It’s a release. If you don’t go, the next week you’re a wreck. And all of our wives loved that we went to play basketball because we were easier to live with, you know? It’s also community-based.”
Nicholas Zapp, 20, and Ryder Offill, 19, two friends both from Guerneville, have been attending for the past 3-4 years, since they were in high school. They also attend other local basketball meetups, including one in Occidental.
Zapp, who currently coaches women’s basketball at Santa Rosa Junior College, said: “I love to play, and this is honestly a fantastic outlet, just to have a run for the week. And everyone’s always nice here, which makes it good.”
Offill, who’s been playing basketball most of his life, said all the basketball meetups he attends are word of mouth. He said that sometimes as many as 15 or 20 people show up for this particular meetup, and in that case it lasts two or three hours. With fewer people, it lasts an hour and a half to two hours.
“I don’t really work out enough outside of this,” he said, “so this is my main way of running, staying in shape, that kind of thing.”
Jesse Fichman, 31, of West Santa Rosa, first attended 23 years ago, when he was a kid and his dad, Dr. David Fichman, brought him to practice. He’s now a regular.
“It’s just so fun. I feel so free on the court,” he said. “Being able to gel with the team and to mess around ... I don’t know, it feels like dancing. I love it.”
Tucker Hemquist, 47, a lifelong basketball player who resides in Occidental, began attending in 2006 after he first moved out to West County. A friend told him about it.
“For most of my adult life, it’s been kind of like church,” he said. “That was, like, Wednesday night, I would carve this out as the thing that I was doing. As an adult, I always did. That was my main thing.”
With our brief interviews over, the basketball players in attendance began playing their first game of the evening. Or should I say, going to church.
The weekly Sebastopol Wednesday night men’s basketball game begins at 7:30 p.m. at Community Church of Sebastopol. All local men are invited to attend. Dr. David Fichman, who rents out the space for the weekly get-together, asks for an $8 contribution per person to cover costs.
