Spokane’s favorite holiday: Hoopfest preparations draw early downtown crowd

For sisters Anna Garringer, 13, and Grace Lucas, 12, Hoopfest is their “favorite holiday.”

“I just love the vibes,” Grace said. “I love basketball. I love how everybody gets together to basically play basketball, and it just makes me think that everybody here enjoys it as much as I do.”

In Spokane, seeing groups dribbling basketballs on a downtown sidewalk is not uncommon – especially on Friday, the day before the city’s busiest weekend of the year.

People have been arriving from all over the U.S. and taking to the streets of Spokane, both to play in and facilitate Hoopfest – the world’s largest 3-on-3 basketball tournament.

“Hoopfest is one of those events we hope we never lose,” said Kate Hudson, the public relations manager at Visit Spokane, a nonprofit that promotes tourism for the city.

It’s estimated that Hoopfest generates $47 million in economic impact every June – visitors spend money at local businesses and restaurants, pay lodging and sales taxes, all of which directly benefits the people who live across Spokane County.

“Hoopfest speaks volumes about the Spokane community,” Hudson said. “An event as massive as Hoopfest probably wouldn’t be as magical in a city like Seattle or Los Angeles – it would get lost in the white noise of big-city events.”

The opposite is true in Spokane where the event has a massive impact.

The University of Idaho men’s basketball team, the Vandals, came to run a free basketball clinic for local Spokane youths. One of the players, Julius Mims, is in his second year of participating in the Hoopfest clinic. He loves the community and getting to see “all the smiling faces” of the kids he teaches – they look up to the team and sometimes even ask if they can take the players home with them.

“It’s great to be out here on this beautiful, sunny day,” Mims said. “I mean, where else would you want to be?”

Michele Clarke is one of the many who have come from outside the state, flying in from Maine to volunteer for the event with her sister Renee Volz.

The sisters were born in Spokane and began an annual tradition of volunteering for the event in 2002. After all these years, Clarke said it’s the other volunteers that keep her returning.

Another volunteer, Beverly Stamper, has known Volz and Clarke for over 20 years since meeting them at Hoopfest. Despite living in different parts of the country, they’ve managed to maintain a close connection. According to Stamper, “We may not all be sisters by blood, but we are sisters.”

And at its core, that’s what Hoopfest is : a family affair.

“It’s the people,” Clarke said. “They’ve really actually become a family. I mean, we’ve had deaths, births, all sorts of things.”

Alejandro Ventura has lived in Spokane for 20 years and played in Hoopfest for 15 of them. He and his wife have four kids. She is an avid basketball player, too. This year, Ventura has been put on babysitting duty while the family watches his wife compete. This has the stamp of approval of their young daughter, Vivi, who thinks mom is the better basketball player.

For people planning on coming to watch or play this weekend, Clarke recommends that everybody bring snacks, water, sunscreen and comfortable shoes. Volz added to “bring a lot of patience and a good attitude.”

“There’s always disappointment, there’s happiness, there’s all the things,” she said, “but really, it comes down to (people) just have a good time and enjoy saying that they’ve been at Hoopfest.”