Group ignites sportsmanship among local youth

It is hard to miss the quarter of a million basketball players that shut down more than 40 downtown Spokane blocks each June. But for the past 17 years, months after downtown has been restored to normalcy, roughly 400 middle school players gather for their own 3-on-3 basketball games in high school gyms around Spokane with much less fanfare.

Ignite Basketball Association, run through Spokane Public Schools and led by Hoopfest, organizes a league for students who are from areas of Spokane where poverty, unemployment and crime are high.

In the nearly two decade association with Hoopfest, the league’s goal “to strengthen participants’ character, self-esteem and discipline,” has stayed the same, while their identity has shifted.

The league and name was created after Hoopfest Operations Manager Chad Smith and other organizers heard of similar programs in California called Midnight Basketball. Last year Smith received a letter that informed him the name Midnight Basketball was copyrighted by the organization Smith had originally taken inspiration from. Instead of paying fees to keep the name, program directors decided to come up with a new name for the Spokane league.

“We just wanted something that had some really zazzy handle,” Smith said. Organizers also wanted a name that could easily be shortened, leading to IBA.

Coming into its 18th season, IBA has morphed to accommodate the number of players interested in the program.

“We’ve had a lot of iterations of the league,” Smith said.

Traditionally sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders are enrolled, but with changing waves of interest the league has also seen years of fifth- and fourth-grade teams. Smith said the league will continue to be around as long as there is funding available from the Department of Education and a partnership with the school district.

In previous years the league has experienced greater enrollment and interest than last year’s player count of just over 400. Smith said he looks forward to the days when the league will return to its larger size and can reach out to more players.

Each fall players meet throughout the week for practices along with four Saturdays to play games and hear short talks from college athletes and community speakers, Smith said.

“A lot of them are fantastic basketball players, but most have never played before,” Smith said.

Due to the short season, quick sessions before games focus on learning game play basics and skills that will serve players both on and off the court including teamwork and sportsmanship.

“We’ve had speakers that will come in and college athletes that will talk to the kids and do workshops,” Smith said, quickly adding that both in practices and in games, the real emphasis is always on basketball.

Participation from community members and university students does not only encompass short talks.

While the program is funded by grants, coaches and other aspects of the program are filled in through volunteer work, often from students at Gonzaga University. Until a fund was created in 2015, referees were also volunteers.

In July 2014, Gonzaga alumnus Eric Fox suffered an aortic aneurysm and died just after coaching his two sons in Hoopfest. To celebrate Fox’s memory and 20-year commitment to youth basketball, Fox’s family began a fund to pay IBA referees for the first time in the league’s history. The family’s initial fundraising goal was to cover referee salaries with hopes for a larger impact on the entire league, according to the Hoopfest blog.

The fund now pays all referees who work on behalf of IBA and excess funds are distributed throughout the league to cover other costs.