SPOKANE, Wash. — With only hours to go until the first tip off of Hoopfest on Saturday morning, volunteers spent Friday night transforming downtown Spokane into a sea of basketball courts.
While several volunteers are Hoopfest veterans, some are first-timers, including Kris Mayhew and Spencer Dorway. The two friends spent Friday night taping off courts and setting up for this year’s Hoopfest.
However, volunteering wasn’t exactly planned for one of them. “I saw the invite and signed up for it. I said, ’Why not?’” said Mayhew, who found out about the volunteering opportunity through work. Then Dorway added, “I texted [Mayhew] 20 minutes before he was headed out and then hopped in the car and came with him."
This dynamic duo are only two of the estimated 200 volunteers turning 45 city blocks of Spokane into Hooptown USA.
Yet according to RJ Del Mese, who oversees the court taping and set up, this transformation's no small task. “We've got 375 courts to tape and we've got a very small window in which to do it,” he said. Del Mese said the whole setup typically takes about two and a half hours, from taping the courts to getting the hoops up. Even when the courts are done, his night might not be over.
"I'm a bit of a perfectionist,” admits Del Mese. “I have been out until two, three in the morning, just making sure everyone looks straight, looks right."
Going back to Mayhew & Dorway, the pair said even though they’ve played in Hoopfest before, volunteering has given them a new perspective on what it takes to put on the massive tournament. “It's harder than it looks,” said Mayhew. “And there's a lot of people working a lot harder than you realize until you're down here."
Looking out at the set up of basketball courts still in progress, Dorway noted, “There's a fun energy to kind of being part of the setup before everyone's downtown and it's kind of that chaos energy. It's like the wave is building and you're kind of helping stir the waters. It’s pretty fun.”
According to Spokane city officials, all streets in downtown Spokane will reopen on Sunday, June 30, at 10 p.m.
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