The first thing senior Syl Brundige did after signing himself and seven of his friends up for a recreational basketball league was creating an Instagram account for their team — DaMillers.
A few weeks before the season started on Jan. 8, they were challenged by their friends and fellow seniors Mason Hedrick and Alex Tiedt to go up against the Fireballz, another team in their rec league to a friendly scrimmage at their rec center.
Since then, the “friendly” rivalry between the senior boys who have known each other since elementary school has only intensified. Fueled through not-so-serious social media posts in crowning the least valuable player of each game and trash talking on and off the court, the teams use their rivalries as motivation to win these games.
“You have fun in the games, but you take more joy from some of these rivalries,” Hedrick said. “[Trolling] is way more fun. We take these people’s Instagram posts and hold it over their heads.”
DaMillers, who had only played a few pick-up games at the local rec center, Sylvester Powell community center, to prepare for their season, joined the league simply to have fun. The team never intended to put in a ton of practice time, planning to simply enjoy the season with their friends.
During practices or other games, the teams don’t even take the game as seriously, like senior and team namesake Chase Miller according to teammate senior Charlie Muehlberger.
“A lot of the time during scrimmages [Chase] will throw up half-court shots or just dribble for a while when we’re just trying to play,” Muehlberger said.
But DaMillers get more serious when they face off against their rivals, the Fireballz, who have been dissing the team through posts on their Instagram story or comments on their posts.
“It’s funny to see the reactions on what we post [on Instagram], especially on wins if you post something dogging the team we played,” Hedrick said. “It’s fun to see them at school after so we can brag about it.”
The Fireballz, who claim to be one of the first recreational teams from East to use social media to promote themselves after starting the team last year, have fun with rivalries like this. The account, run by Tiedt and Hedrick, takes their Instagram one step further than most, not just using the account to elevate their team, but to instigate discord with other teams.
When the two teams faced off in the preseason, the Fireballz shared the entire game on their Instagram story to boast after their victory. But to be fair, according to Brundige, the posts only showed one side of the story.
“I wasn’t there and most of our players also weren’t there,” Brundige said. “People will say they scored more points than us, but we would’ve won. It shouldn’t have counted in the first place.”
For the Fireballz this was just part of the fun, with these rivalries making the season more exciting. However, senior Hudson O’Neill doesn’t take direct action when controlling the posts on their team account, as he can see the effect on and off the court.
“[Instagram] is kind of our main thing,” O’Neill said. “We like messing with other teams, posting funny stuff and making a joke out of it to help build rivalries.”
Brundige, who runs the account for DaMillers, tries to make the posts after their games slightly more positive. These posts include edited photos of his friends’ faces plastered over Jordan dunking or Tony Snell’s infamous stat line. He also shows clips of the team’s best plays — currently consisting of Brundige’s rare three-pointer in their previous game.
After originally only starting the team for fun, DaMillers have been training at the rec center to beat the Fireballz, even winning their first game of the year on Jan. 7 at Indian Hills Middle School. But Muehlberger watched from the bench as his teammates won their first official basketball game of the season. He had to ride the bench after getting into foul trouble for his Dennis Rodman-esque “defense” earlier in the game.
“I’m a little guy, so I feel like I can push a little more than I probably should,” Muehlberger said. “But yeah, I get away with more than most.”
Muehlberger says his team has decided to “take the high road” and not retaliate online despite what they’ve seen from their rival account. The DaMillers plan to best the Fireballz in person Feb. 25 during their final showdown of the season.
“They’ll talk their talk, but really when it comes down to it, we’ll see who’s able to pull up,” Muehlberger said. “They’re an unprofessional team of unprofessional players.”
The Fireballz are also looking forward to the big game and finally setting the record straight.
“We’re not nervous to beat them, we’ll do it again,” Hedrick said. “That scrimmage showed us all we needed to know. We don’t really see any scary people on their team.”
Both teams encourage fans to come cheer them on, regardless of the outcome.
“It’ll be a big game and we’re hoping to get a large crowd,” Brundige said. “The first 10 are getting free giveaways, it’s going to be a 200 plus spectacular.”
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