Schmidt, Spike & Dig grew up together

When Jerry Schmidt started Spike & Dig in 1992, his son Brandon was 4 years old.

He worked as a vendor at the event, selling soda and working his way up the ladder as he got older.

Now a 20-year-old junior at the University of Washington, Schmidt is a three-year veteran as the 16-year-old tournament’s event director.

Volleyball’s scaled-down version of Hoopfest is this weekend at Spokane Falls Community College. Schmidt, who was a senior at Gonzaga Prep when he took over the job, remembers the rookie days and how his father, a co-founder of Hoopfest, helped him make the transition.

“I was still pretty young,” Schmidt said. “My dad helped me with that transition of going to meetings while I was still in high school.

“The difficult part was getting sponsors to give me credit to run a tournament like this. I’ve been around it my entire life, I was familiar with how it’s run, but going out and talking to sponsors was the challenge at first.”

Three years later, Schmidt seems settled in as head of the largest outdoor coed 6-on-6 tournament of its kind.

“Since that first year, I’ve built relationships with people and different companies, and now I’m not the new kid,” he said. “They expect me to be here running things, they know I’m capable, and it’s definitely been more smooth for me the past couple of years.”

Schmidt, with some high school buddies he’s brought on board, said that Spike & Dig’s emphasis is a family atmosphere.

“It’s a great community event,” he said. “It’s always compared to Hoopfest and Bloomsday, but it’s a little different. The teams are a lot bigger than in Hoopfest and we get a lot more family teams – we take pride in that.

“It’s a really diverse event too – we have one team that has a 67- and a 20-year-old on the same team, so there is a lot of diversity. It’s a great family atmosphere and we try to make it an environment for everybody and give back to community.”

This year’s tournament includes 219 teams and more than 1,600 players.

Kate Ball and her husband Trent’s team – Big Red Fire Engine – will be playing for its sixth year overall and its second year in the highly competitive A bracket.

“We like the competitiveness and the amount of volleyball we get to play,” Ball said. “A lot of outdoor tournaments are two- or three-person teams, so we like that it’s played with more people out there – it’s a great event.”