Hoopfest loses its director

With Hoopfest just seven weeks away, one team is looking to replace a key player.

Brady Crook, executive director of the world’s largest 3-on-3 street basketball tournament, has accepted a fund-raising position with Washington State University and submitted his resignation to Hoopfest’s board of directors. His last day on the job is Thursday.

And his successor could be his predecessor.

Former executive director Rick Steltenpohl confirmed on Friday that he has “a fair amount of interest” in the position and will meet with the Hoopfest board of directors on Monday.

“I definitely have interest in talking to them,” said Steltenpohl, “and seeing if their goals and mine match up – and see if they forgive me for leaving.”

Steltenpohl, a founding board member of the event and its executive director for 14 years, resigned in 2005 to become part owner of Northwest Sports and Entertainment, a marketing concern based in Phoenix. He returned last year because of family considerations and has been working with Lukins & Annis as a firm administrator and helping the Spokane Parks Foundation with its annual Dragon Boat Festival.

Jerry Karstetter, chairman of the Hoopfest board, said no decision has been made whether to replace Crook on an interim or permanent basis before this year’s event – set for June 30-July 1 – or wait until afterward to fill the position.

“We’ve already had five names come up as potential executive directors,” said Karstetter. “The board is now working in conjunction with the staff and looking at those and trying to come up with some options between here and Hoopfest.”

Crook has been on the job a little more than two years and acknowledged that for this change “obviously the timing is not awesome.

“But it’s a great opportunity for my family and myself,” he said. “I love the Hoopfest organization and people, but this was something I couldn’t say no to.”

Crook, 39, will rejoin Washington State as a senior development officer in charge of WSU-Spokane and regional fund-raising. He’ll continue to live in Spokane, working half time for the local campus and half time for the entire WSU system.

A WSU alum and a baseball player under Bobo Brayton, Crook will be in his third stint with the Cougars as an administrator. He worked in the athletic marketing department after graduation, left for positions at Oregon and Nevada before becoming an associate athletic director at WSU in 2000.

“Any time WSU comes calling, I have a tendency to go back,” Crook said. “I’m always going to have a deep passion for WSU.”

He said the school was willing to be flexible and allow Crook to oversee Hoopfest 2007 while beginning his duties with Washington State.

“But the board decided it would be better for the organization for them to let me focus on WSU and let them figure out what they wanted to do,” he said. “I’d given them a range of options and they decided my last day would be the 17th.”

Crook starts his new job on May 21.

Both he and Karstetter said the split with Hoopfest was not a product of friction between Crook and the board.

“We had a great working relationship,” Karstetter said. “He’s a fantastic person and we kind of looked at it from the aspect of what’s best for him. This isn’t perfect for Hoopfest, but we have a great staff that’s been there a long time, people who’ve made this event work so well for so many years from the bottom up. It made (the situation) not as tenuous as it might be in an organization that’s more top-down.”

Crook said he was “blessed to be involved with Hoopfest and I’m going to love being a part of it as a volunteer. There were no issues on my side whatsoever.

“What impressed me about it was the dedication of the people – and obviously not just the players, though you do have 24,000 who keep coming back. How the community gets behind the event, what the volunteers do just for a T-shirt, is just phenomenal.”

Karstetter said potential replacements include people who have expressed an interest in the job or who “come highly referred.” He acknowledged that Steltenpohl’s name was one of the first to come up as a possible replacement, but both men emphasized that no agreement has been reached.

“They haven’t offered nor I have I said I want it,” Steltenpohl said. “But I have incredible passion for the event and the organization and I’m looking forward to talking to them about it.”