ANENDRA SINGH | 5th June 2010
 

CROWD PLEASER: Rachael Hinchco helps pick the best dancer in the crowd at halftime during the Hawks match at the Pettigrew-Green Arena, Taradale.

A twenty-something woman sits in a pokey office in the bowels of a Hastings petrol station.
Clad in black and three-quarter denim jeans, the bespectacled Rachael Earnshaw, or Hinchco as she's known, cuts a striking figure against the green-and-yellow facade the outlet entrance offers motorists.
The Manhattan of invoices, folders and open drawers around her computer workstation suggest her hive of activity is momentarily in a state of dormancy.
Her face breaks into a radiant smile. It's in total defiance of her role as a stressed-out BP site administrator, symbolically reflected in the 0800 Easy LPG Hawks motif jumping out from the 28-year-old's black shirt.
Amid the hectic schedule of managing a string of Jaro Group BP service stations in Hawke's Bay for her father, Rod Earnshaw, and business partner Mike Smith, Hinchco, slips on the hat of Hawks franchise administrator.
Living in Napier, she starts at 7am and often ends her day about 10.30pm ``when the Hawks boys stop texting''.
On the mainly Friday match nights of National Basketball League, you can't miss her darting like a fox terrier around the expansive Pettigrew-Green Arena.
Those nights tend to be the litmus test to a culmination of orchestrating week-long activities for the hordes of basketball players, sponsors and fans.
From the makeshift kitchen to tables, weaving between stand aisles and finding herself centre court for halftime promotional giveaways, Hinchco seldom loses that infectious smile.
``I'm on auto-pilot mode making sure everything is moving smoothly,'' says the former Napier Girls' High School pupil, who considers her sporty two-door Mitsubishi FTO her third office.
On match day, she'll be at the arena at 9am, grabbing a supermarket trolley to empty her jam-packed car of everything basketball.
She then starts dressing up the sponsors' tables with signs, as the Hawks and visiting teams' practise.
A bunch of 10-15 people will help her from 6pm after the food has arrived and she has stacked the drinks in the trailer unit chillers.
When the final buzzer goes and the arena starts echoing again about 9.15pm, she helps her loyal and diligent army put the tables away.
Back-breaking, stressful, tedious?
``Nah, it's just like cleaning up after a big party at home,'' she tells SportToday.
By about 10pm, she grabs her box of goodies and handbag to make a beeline for the Westshore Inn to host sponsors and visiting teams.
``If I'm lucky I'll grab a shower in the referees' changing room because I know they won't be there at that time,'' she says, cracking up with laughter.
As early morning beckons, she'll try to grab a bite at the inn before slipping away without anyone noticing.
It's another shower at home and filling the pet-food bowl as her pet French bulldog, Tyson, pines for attention before she gleefully hits the sack.
``If Tyson's lucky he gets to snuggle up to me in bed,'' she says with a grin of the dog some of the Hawks adore.
Some days she'll question her faith in the job she only took up this year but she quickly reconciles that with what got her to assume the mantle of Hawks administrator.
``I love the sport, the team and helping people,'' says Hinchco, who has been following the Hawks since she was in her early teens.
The endorsement of Hinchco's professionalism came last month when NBL sponsors Bartercard CEO Paul Bolte, of Auckland, remarked: ``I've been to all the NBL venues around the country and I can tell you the hospitality here tonight is comfortably the best.''
`I'm not just saying this at every venue just to please people. This is my honest assessment,'' Bolte told SportToday.
Hinchco shares some moments during her basketball stint that would make many green with envy.
Like when the Nelson Giants were horsing around after their final practice at the arena on May 7. Turning his back to the back board on the half-way mark, Phill Jones attempted to thread the ball through the hoop.
A smirking Hinchco pointed out to Jones she had only seen one person, former Hawk Parlane Hawea, do that almost 12 years ago.
``Watch this,'' a revved-up Jones replied and a few speculators later left Hinchco gobsmacked by sinking two shots in a row as his coach, Chris Tupu, shook his head as his troops went on to lose that day.
Even more fulfilling for Hinchco was offering a hospitality table to an elderly Bay couple, only known to her as Mr and Mrs Christmas, for two home games this season.
``I've been coming down as a teenager since 1995 and I've seen them every time, with their cushions.
``They couldn't stop thanking me when I gave them the corporate table.''
RACHAEL HINCHCO SNAPSHOT
* What do you love about basketball?
How fast players can move. The two I loved watching play were Chris Tupu and Kent Mori. They were like bullets.
* What do you dislike about it?
Players who don't pass the ball, especially when they keep missing the hoop.
* Favourite food: Nana's banana cake because you can't beat her cooking.
* Drink: Sugar-free V because it keeps me going.
* TV show: Packed to the Rafters because it's entertaining and mirrors life.
* Music: Anything with a good beat and Kiwi music.
* Which person would you not like to sit next to on a flight?
George W Bush because I don't like what he did when he was in the White House.
* What would you be professionally if you weren't doing your jobs?
Just travelling and doing odd jobs to pay my way through. I'd sell newspapers on the corner of New York streets if I had to.
* Least favourite household chore: Mopping. It's so tedious.
* If you could have anything for you next birthday, what would it be?
A trip to Monaco to watch Formula One racing. I went through there for three hours on a tiki tour but it was a week before the motor racing.