Team Doran will hit Hoopfest with friend in their hearts

It’s fitting that Gabe Doran’s team will play in Hoopfest this weekend – even though it has to play without him. The Wilson Elementary fifth-grader gave his best effort to everything he tried and wouldn’t let anything get in his way, his friend and teammate Terry Cox said. Not even epilepsy.

“He never let that stop him in anything,” Terry said.

This was to be the boys’ first year playing together in Hoopfest, the annual 3-on-3 basketball tournament that fills downtown Spokane with thousands of players.

Gabe died April 26 at Sacred Heart Medical Center’s pediatric intensive care unit of complications resulting from his seizures.

Six days before his death, the red-haired kid with freckles and an endless smile was at Terry’s house in south Spokane, making up plays for Hoopfest, Terry recalled. The 11-year-olds also were teammates in the Spokane Breakers, a select soccer club run by Spokane Youth Sports Association.

Terry has a T-shirt that he wrote on with a marker after his friend died, said his mother, Teri Cox. “It says, ‘Gabe, you’ll always be a Breaker to us,’ ” she said.

She said Wilson, the boys’ school, created an award in Gabe’s honor. The Gabe Doran Resiliency Award goes to the boy and girl who best typify Gabe’s spirit.

Terry received the first award.

“He tried hard in school, but he was best in sports,” the boy said of his friend. “So we decided to play for him like he was on the team still.”

This weekend, Team Doran will take to the courts sporting jerseys and wristbands bearing Gabe’s name and the No. 2 he wore. Five jerseys were made, one for each member of the team – Terry, Colton Fitzgerald, Frankie Piccolo and Eamonn Neff – and one for Gabe’s parents, Ron and Cheryl Doran.

Gabe’s younger cousins and neighbors, with whom he used to play basketball, also dedicated their Hoopfest team, Gaber’s Neighbors, to the boy.

Terry said he most misses his buddy’s friendliness – that and his grin.

“He never took it off his face,” he said.