3-On-3 One Big Show Organizers Forced To Cut Off Registration At Record Number

Rick Steltenpohl is a CPA, a numbers guy. The longer he studied the numbers, the more convinced he was.

The unthinkable had become the sensible.

After six seasons of encouraged expansion, Hoopfest - to grade-schoolers and grandfathers alike the basketball event of the year - would for now grow no more.

Mindful of the exotic housepet in diapers that becomes the 300-pound gorilla, Steltenpohl saw, in too many teams, a threat to quality.

So organizers cut off registration at a record 3,903 teams. Two hundred teams that had signed up were turned away. Unhappily, checks were returned and explanations articulated.

Organizers wanted to return to 16-team brackets, and shorter Saturdays. Last year’s experiment with the 18-team bracket meant for some an opening game at 8 a.m. and a finale after 7 p.m.

It was a long, drawn-out Saturday.

By holding firm on numbers, organizers also recognized what Steltenpohl, the executive director of the country’s largest 3-on-3 basketball tournament, calls the “importance of the continuity of the site.”

Riverfront Park, the expanse of river and green, provides a relaxing backdrop to the super-charged atmosphere. Scheduling games away from the mainstream - the park, the events courts, the music and support activities that are the life of the event - is a potential solution to the numbers problem but an untenable alternative.

“Part of the charm is not playing in a parking lot,” Steltenpohl said. “There’s green everywhere. There’s an atmosphere. We’re not willing to jeopardize the experience for 300 more teams. We can’t accommodate everybody this year and that’s sad.”

Sad but indicative of an enormous popularity that cuts through age and gender. From 512 teams in the inaugural year of 1990, Hoopfest has filled out to 15,351 players. With 325 court monitors, 50 court marshals and 625 other key volunteers, they dust off moves that are interrupted occasionally by the inevitable fouling and whining.

The event is whine-proof. It’s a massive marshalling of resources that moves on the promise of a good time.

Fun on such scale is no happy accident. Next weekend’s seventh annual invasion of humanity is orchestrated and funded on a detailed scope unforeseen by organizers who plotted the first Hoopfest.

Yet the driver is the same.

Since 1990, organizers have funneled more than $250,000 to causes, Steltenpohl said, primarily Special Olympics.

Special Olympics has received nearly $158,000. About $29,000 has gone into an outdoor hoop program. Two courts are in, two more are going up, Steltenpohl said.

Other recipients are YWCA $12,000, Lakeland Village $12,000, YMCA $9,500, Chase Youth Commission (for a summer 3-on-3 basketball camp and playday) more than $6,000, AAU $6,000 and East Central Community Center $4,500.

Hoopfest also turned over 250 synthetic leather basketballs from last year’s tournament to a relief mission bound for the African nation of Rwanda.

Founded on goodwill, Hoopfest is also good business. Included in its $499,000 ‘96 budget is $434,000 in expenses, $50,000 in donations and “some retention built in,” Steltenpohl says, “to insure our long-term viability.”

A 501 C-3 non-profit organization, Hoopfest maintains a cash reserve that varies month to month.

“We’re cash-rich now because of all the entry fees and sponsor help, but we won’t have much cash left at the end of the year,” said Steltenpohl, 33, a founding board member in his fourth year as executive director. “We pay bills, donate money and get through cash-wise until next year, then do the cycle again.”

Revenue this year alone, including in-kind donations (such as free office space, compliments of Seafirst), will probably exceed $500,000.

“We used to have our retention tied up in cash,” Steltenpohl said. “Now we have it tied up in fixed assets, such as basketball structures (supports for backboards and rims). We have 256 and eight in reserve. That’s at a cost well over $100,000.”

It’s a huge cost, and a savings in time.

“Those wooden structures we had wouldn’t work (now),” Steltenpohl said. “We couldn’t physically set up all those structures. We’ve grown up. We have costs we didn’t have before.”

Salaries, for one. Steltenpohl and two assistants are salaried. Otherwise, help comes from an all-volunteer army headed by a board of directors - Rick Betts, Terry Kelly, Diane Sullivan, Bruce Howard, Jerry Karstetter, Jack Cosby and chairman Ed Miller.

As the event nears, days grow longer. Organizers are intent on chasing the devil out of the details.

“A couple of us were in the office ‘til 3 a.m. last (Monday) night,” Steltenpohl said. “A volunteer, K.W. Knorr, who heads the court-marshall program, was here with us working on his stuff because he cares, too. That happens a lot around here.”

Wary of shortcuts, Steltenpohl says cost-cutting isn’t always a bargain.

Example: Courts could be marked by spray chalk, but Hoopfest uses more expensive temporary highway tape because chalk “looks bad, wears off and doesn’t give you the court presence,” Steltenpohl said. “Tape isn’t cheap, but it adds quality.”

Part of the charm is that nobody is too far from a win.

Beyond fun, a baser instinct - the will to win - strikes close to the heart of Hoopfesters of all ages.

“There’s a winner every game,” Steltenpohl said. “Every bracket has an ultimate winner. There’ll be 247 teams that win finalists shirts, 247 more that get consolation-bracket shirts. There are lots of winners.”

The help continues to line up, Steltenpohl said. Rather than running out of volunteer steam, the event is generating support as it grows.

“It seems be easier to get volunteers,” Steltenpohl said. “People have come out of the woodwork. It’s a festival all weekend and they want to be part of it.”

Relations with the downtown business corps have warmed, from grudging acceptance to partnership.

“We’ve had great support from the businesses, the police department, the traffic engineering department, fire department, city hall - they love having us downtown, but they also know where their tax base is (from retail sales). If there’s a problem, they get us together with the businesses and we work it out,” Steltenpohl said.

“We came in thinking, ‘Hey, this is a great event.’ We were so enthused we wanted everyone to be enthused. Maybe we weren’t as aware of the needs and perceptions of the people that need to earn a living downtown. But we worked through it and it hasn’t been that painful.”

There’s nothing original at work here. Three-on-threes are everywhere. What’s different is visionary management and commitment from all corners of the community.

“It’s not rocket-science stuff,” Steltenpohl said. “We decided we wanted to do it better. I think, with a lot of help, we have.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo Graphic: By the numbers

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: NOTHING BUT NET As a team prepares for Hoopfest, one question usually lingers in players’ minds: Will we need stilts or will we be facing someone from the pee-wee leagues? This year, teams can find the answer before the opening day. Virtually Northwest, the on-line service of The Spokesman-Review, has prepared scouting reports on each of the 3,891 teams in the tournament. You can find out which teams you’ll be playing, the names of each player, how tall they are and a wealth of other statistical information. The service is free to anyone with access to the Internet’s World Wide Web. Just point your web browser at: http://www.VirtuallyNW.com