In 2019, A Kentucky Volleyball Referee Started Buying Call Options For An Unloved Stock With 90% Short Interest. He Lost Money For Over A Year.

According to The Ringer, Louisville volleyball referee Mike McCaskill began buying GameStop weekly calls in 2019 and, after years of mostly losing trades, bought 750 short-term $60 calls on January 19, 2021. He sold most of his position as the stock neared $347 in late January, booking approximately $25 million, while retaining about 2,500 shares; the article cautions that his outcome depended on experience, position sizing and selling into the spike. Split-adjusted figures cited in the article show GameStop down 44.15% over five years versus the S&P 500 up 77.16%.

Analysis

The investable lesson is about position survival and exit discipline, not a repeatable signal. High short interest can create convex upside only when a catalyst, constrained borrow, and fresh demand coincide; by itself it can persist while short-dated calls decay. The article is a retrospective success story, so it supplies no evidence of a present-day setup in GameStop Corp. (GME). Treating it as a current catalyst risks buying sentiment after the optionality has already been repriced.

Near term (days), the main market effect is likely renewed retail attention and potentially episodic call demand—not a demonstrated change in earnings power. Over 1–3 months, a squeeze thesis needs independently verified short interest, borrow availability/cost, option-implied volatility versus realized volatility, and a credible company-specific catalyst. Over 6–18 months, fundamentals, dilution/share-count changes, and cash deployment matter more than a one-off positioning shock. Chewy, Inc. (CHWY) is relevant only as the historical source of Ryan Cohen’s profile; this account does not establish a current CHWY read-through.

Contrarian point: the vivid winner is subject to survivorship bias. Repeatedly buying weekly calls can lose the full premium even when the directional thesis is eventually right. No trade is warranted from this article alone. A confirmed catalyst plus unusually favorable option pricing could justify a small, defined-risk call spread; avoid open-ended exposure to theta and volatility crush. The squeeze thesis weakens if short interest/borrow tightness is not confirmed, call activity lacks follow-through, or price fails to hold a high-volume breakout.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Do not treat the profile as a fresh GME catalyst or buy weekly calls on the basis of short interest alone.
• Put GME on an event-driven watchlist: verify current short interest, borrow availability and cost, option-implied versus realized volatility, and any concrete company catalyst before considering exposure.
• If those conditions align and option pricing is not already extreme, consider only a small, premium-limited call spread; define the exit in advance and take profits into a rapid volatility-driven spike.
• Falsify the squeeze setup if verified positioning is not crowded, borrow conditions ease, or GME cannot sustain a high-volume breakout; reassess longer-term exposure against fundamentals and share-count changes.