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“Basically we’re like the Boston Celtics of Whirly Ball,” Gill says. “We’ve got a major big dynasty going. If you were to take the best 50 players in the nation, probably 40 would come from here. It’s just because we really coach our players to make them better. When we get new beginners, we pick out ones that are a little bit better than the rest and set up workshops on Sunday to coach them.”

“Nobody will ever do what we’ve done in Whirly Ball again,” said Tom Choquette who has played a role in running the facility for all 12 of its years. “And we probably have even another two or three years before anyone even comes close to beating us. And if they come close we have systems that we can put in place.”

Choquette overhears two players talking about the national tournament in a couple weeks and a look of confidence eases over his face.

“Everybody learns from us. We develop a system and go crush everyone and then when the rest of the country learns that system, we find something else to do and crush them all over again. We’re about two jumps ahead of everybody so right now it’s almost kind of boring for us. I’d like to see about 20 years of being undisputed champions so we’ve still got about ten years to go. We can do it,” he growls in a low voice; “piece of cake.”

Just by looking at him, it’s easy to tell Croquette is the father-figure of this Whirly Ball family. His dark eyes and rugged face might be intimidating if they weren’t offset with a warm smile.

“Tom’s the kind of guy who—if you need a little work or a little help–will give you the shirt off his back. He’s just a wonderful guy,” says Bret Cornelius, a construction worker who has worked intermittently at the center.

Cornelius looks around and points to various people who have worked at the center or are working there now.

“We do all kinds of different things throughout the year,” Cornelius says. “Once and a while, we’ll do all-nighters where we’ll be here for 20 hours straight. We do everything from playing Lazertag on the courts to just locking the doors and having a big party. We like to try a lot of new things because so many of us have been here for a long time.”

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