Life as a court monitor
When Alan Bafus stepped aside as a longtime Hoopfest participant last spring and opted, instead, to serve as a court monitor for the world’s largest 3-on-3 street basketball tournament, he was hoping to ease into his new role.
What he wanted to monitor was a court in the men’s 40-and-over bracket.
“I had played Hoopfest quite a few years,” recalled Bafus, who was 46 at the time, “and I figured those over-40 guys can play basketball, and they’re all pretty considerate. If you fall down, they kind of help you up and stuff.
“So when I put in my (court monitor) application, I asked for adult males over 40.”
What Hoopfest officials assigned him to was a court in the testosterone-laden men’s 20-24 bracket.
“When I got that assignment,” Bafus said, “I immediately thought, ‘Oh, my. This could get interesting.’ “
So Bafus, who works for Farm Credit Services, went into his first Hoopfest assignment expecting to encounter everything from shouting and shoving to an all-out brawl, perhaps.
What he discovered was a group of relatively well-behaved young men simply looking for some basketball fun on the streets of downtown Spokane.
“It went pretty smooth,” Bafus said. “The only problems were the late games on Saturday, where the winner goes on to play on Sunday and the losers go home. I had two games back-to-back that were a little more intense, because the goal is always to get into Sunday.”
Bafus said he was warned by his court marshal about the increased passion in loser-out games.
“When you have your first eight games, you see all 16 teams in your bracket,” Bafus explained. “So after I had seen them all, I told my court marshal, ‘Boy, so far, so smooth. This is a great group.’
“But he looked at me and said, ‘Just wait until this afternoon. When it comes down to a game where the loser goes home and the winner moves on to Sunday, you’ll see a little different attitude.’ And in games back-to-back, I saw that. “
After receiving the court marshal’s warning, Bafus went into Saturday afternoon’s loser-out games prepared to deal with everything from shouting and shoving to fisticuffs – in a rather passive manner, as it turns out.
“My thoughts were, ‘If they’re going to start fighting, I’m going to watch,’ ” he explained.
As it turned out, however, the worst incidents Bafus encountered involved little more than some over-the-top name calling.
“It never got beyond being verbal,” he said. “But it’s amazing what some adult males call other adult males.”
Prior to becoming a court monitor, Bafus played in 11 consecutive Hoopfests, helping his team to bracket championships in 1999 and 2001, the last year he competed. He and his wife, Christy, then took a couple of years off to watch their daughter, Kristen, play summer club basketball.
But last year, Bafus became involved again, and his initial experience as a court monitor left him feeling good about his decision to give up the competitive side of the ultra-popular event.
“I’m satisfied,” he explained, “because that pavement doesn’t get any softer. And I figure that winning that one last championship in 2001 was kind of a good way to finish.”
This year, Bafus went so far as to request another adult male 20-24 court to monitor.
“It was really a great group of guys last year,” he recalled. “It was great basketball. It was fun to watch and monitor them.”
And his wife, who serves as the scorekeeper on his court, isn’t complaining, either.
“She actually likes the 20-24 bracket,” Bafus said. “She said the scenery is better than the over-40s, because some of the young guys still have those six-pack abs.”