Players Put On A Show Teams, Spectators Court Image As Hoopfest Rounds Into Shape

Dennis Rodmans, hippie chicks, even Marky Mark wannabes….

Booths that sold sliding doors, wind chimes, live hedgehogs….

Hoopfest may be the closest thing to Mardi Gras that Spokane ever gets.

The event isn’t just a three-on-three basketball tournament for more than 17,000 people; it’s a fashion runway, a freak show that could share the stage with “Rocky Horror.”

“We don’t really play, we just like to look good,” said David Eastham of Spokane, who showed off his buffed body on Saturday by wearing just shorts and basketball shoes. “Skins and khakis - that’s our uniform.”

Sure they worry about their layups and jump shots; but some also work on their image.

“We like the attention,” said Aaron Dacy of the Bumblebees.

Every year, he and his friends spend hours the night before the two-day Hoopfest bleaching their hair, then dyeing it to match their shorts.

They went with blue two years ago and called themselves the “Billy Bob Bobs.” This year, they picked a punky chartreuse to complete their black-and-yellow bumblebee look.

Others, of course, were more natural. Take it from Jim Novak of Spokane.

Smoking a cigarette along the sidelines, Novak shook his long, curly brown hair and proudly displayed his tie-dyed Grateful Dead shirt: a skeleton slamdunking on a basketball court.

The shirt, he explained, celebrates the time when Jerry Garcia and the band sponsored the Lithuanian basketball team to the Olympics.

Like other Hoopfest characters, it was hard not to notice Novak - a tall, lanky man in a colorful shirt and ripped jean shorts. “I wanted to give the other team a chance,” he said, referring to the cigarette.

Some uniforms also paid tribute to important people. Dressed in camouflage shirts and olive green shorts, the members of Knuckles Angels wanted to honor a substitute teacher at Lewis and Clark High School.

“He’s a war vet,” explained 17-year-old John McGuire. “We don’t know which war but he’s a cool guy.”

And Angels, by the way, is from the TV show “Charlie’s Angels,” added team member Andrew Thompson.

Still, some accessories weren’t just for show. Body piercings actually come in handy when playing basketball, said Sam McKoon of Spokane, a 21-year-old with a pierced tongue. “If you stick it out, they look at it,” he said. “That’s when you dribble the ball right by them.”

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