Team Goldsmith Valleyford Family’s Year-Round Passion For Basketball Comes To Apex At Hoopfest Time

Hoopfest is just another weekend of basketball for Doug Goldsmith and his family.

Whether in the driveway of their home - complete with free-throw circle, three-point arc and Seattle Super Sonics logos - at a high school, college or recreation league game, basketball is a year-round thing for the Goldmsiths.

“Other than Sunday night, it’s just about every night,” said Doug Goldsmith, who farms in Valleyford when he isn’t involved in a basketball game as player or coach.

“And we practice Sunday afternoons so it is basically seven days a week.”

This weekend’s happening - the nation’s largest downtown three-on-three street tournament - was made to order for these basketball junkies.

Last year, their first time playing together in Hoopfest, Doug and sons Chad and Travis won their division. This year, younger son D.J. has been added to the roster.

And mom doesn’t just cheer from the sidelines. Lynn Goldsmith and Travis teamed to win Hoopfest’s mother-son free throw shooting contest last year. She made nine of 10 in the finals. Who finished second? Lynn and oldest son Chad.

Doug and Travis, whom family members agree is the best free throw shooter of the bunch, won the father-son contest.

All but D.J., who will be a sophomore, are Freeman High School graduates. Doug stands 6-foot-5 and wears size 15 shoes. Chad, who completed his second year at Community Colleges of Spokane, is 6-4, and Travis, last year’s leading Scotties scorer, is 6-3. They both wear size 14 shoes. D.J., is only 6-foot-1, with size 13 feet, but is already taller than his father or older brothers were at the same age.

The Goldsmiths have been playing in Hoopfest since it began in 1990. They have watched the event grow from 511 teams to more than 3,600, even as they’ve condensed into one team.

The four males had all played with friends until last year when Chad was looking for a team and the family decided to combine.

“It’s kind of Dad’s last hurrah with the kids,” said Doug. “They held me up well.”

Last year, with only three players, there were no subs. Now that D.J. has joined in, Dad said the younger ones will play and he’ll be a rooter.

“My knees basically told me,” said Doug. “I don’t want to quit but the way my knees are hurting, it overrides the fun.”

Said Lynn, “After last year’s Hoopfest he said never again. It took him three months to get over it. But here he is again.”

Doug and Lynn Goldsmith were high school sweethearts who graduated from Freeman High School in 1970. Doug has played recreational basketball every year since and coached his sons since first grade. The Freeman area’s involvement in YMCA basketball has grown from his initial offerings to 160 participants. Doug now helps coach at Freeman High.

Chad averaged 20 points a game his senior year at Freeman High and 12 points and eight rebounds this year at CCS.

Travis, who averaged nearly 17 points a game as Freeman contended for a Northeast A League title this year, will also play for the Sasquatch.

D.J., says Chad, will be the best of the lot.

The Goldsmiths helped start a three-on-three basketball tournament at the Southeast Spokane County Fair that last year drew 87 teams to play on 10 courts set up on the main street of Rockford.

Small pickings, perhaps compared to Spokane’s Hoopfest, but a tribute to the game’s popularity nonetheless.

“I think it’s great,” said Chad of this weekend’s event. “The height of the hoop could be 11 feet from one corner and from straight on it’s nine feet. It’s probably the second most fun except for college.”

The oldest brothers’ bedroom is papered by Travis with every Michael Jordan poster offered. He also has a replica of Jordan’s No. 45 jersey.

Also displayed are trophies, mostly Chad’s, the honors accrued in a sport during careers at Freeman High School and Community Colleges of Spokane.

To say they are consumed by basketball is an understatement. But Hoopfest still leaves them in awe.

“It’s not as overwhelming at Hoopfest. but is kind of like Bloomsday,” said Doug Goldsmith. “It’s a feeling you can’t describe.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo