The Perennials: Hoopfest holds special bond over brothers Garrick and Greg Phillips and friend Don Jones

For the first time since the inception of Hoopfest, Don Jones won’t be playing in the annual 3-on-3 basketball tournament in Spokane.

The 57-year-old Spokane native participated in 34 consecutive Hoopfests, and he overcame some major hurdles to keep the streak alive.

In 2014, he played one month after suffering a heart attack. In 2017, he underwent three wrist surgeries, but still suited up. Last year, he had knee replacement surgery in May, but that didn’t stop him either.

Finally, at the behest of his family, he decided to hang it up – he barely missed the cut on becoming one of about 30 players to participate in all 35 Hoopfests.

“I’ve had a lot of challenges over the years to make every one,” Jones said. “It’s really difficult to not play this year, but I sort of promised my family that I wouldn’t. My body is just broken down. It was just time to walk away. If I could, I’d love to play forever, but my body is just not on board.”

Still, perhaps Jones should be considered as an honorary member of the 35th anniversary club. His dedication to the tournament has been nothing short of inspiring, exemplifying the spirit of Hoopfest and the almost addictive nature of the tournament.

“I always look forward to it,” said Jones, a North Central High and Eastern Washington grad. “It’ll be emotional this weekend. It’s like a reunion. You get to know all these people over the years and it’s fun running into folks you’ve played against. It’ll be difficult saying, ‘Yeah, I’m not playing for the first time.’ But it was time. Sometimes you gotta accept the inevitable. It was going to end eventually, and we decided it was best while I was still semiupright.”

Jones retires with two or three bracket wins under his belt and “more second-place finishes than I care to remember.” He’s played alongside about 30 partners since the first Hoopfest in 1990.

“When you get to my age, it’s tough to find guys who are still playing,” he said. “The last couple of years have been a challenge to get on the court. Some of the best memories are all the things I’ve gone through to try and get here.”

During one Hoopfest weekend, Jones was to attend his cousin’s wedding in Seattle, so he flew there between games. He missed one afternoon game but managed to get back to Spokane in time for an evening game.

“It takes a high level of dedication and a little bit of craziness,” he said.

That notion especially rings true when considering what Jones went through in 2014. He began to feel ill during a round of golf in Snoqualmie, Washington, where he still resides, on May 14 of that year, so he retired early and went home to lie down. Later that night, his wife took him to the emergency room, where they learned Jones needed heart surgery.

“They said I wouldn’t have woke up the next morning if I wouldn’t have come in, so thank goodness for my wife,” he said. “They put two stints in and I’ve been fine after that. That was crazy. I played against doctor’s orders, and I felt OK. My strength wasn’t back yet, but it was something I’d done every year and I wanted to keep it going. That was an emotional one, for sure. I grabbed some yellow tape off the court and I still have it.”

It’s a well-earned token of resilience for Jones, who first started playing at Hoopfest to continue pursuing his passion for basketball, but the tournament became bigger than the sport itself. It’s about the tradition, the community, the memories and the friends he’s made along the way.

“I love everything about it,” he said. “It’s always been a big part of my life.”

Jones moved to the West Side in 1997 to work for Boeing. While living in Snoqualmie, he became close with Mount Si High coach Garrick Phillips. The two first met at open-gym sessions hosted by Phillips at Mount Si.

“It’s a small world. We ended up being neighbors in Snoqualmie,” said Phillips, a Spokane native and Northwest Christian grad who coached at Mount Si for 13 years then spent the past 18 seasons as coach at University High before stepping down last year. “We’d see each other (at Hoopfest). We ran into each other for the 20-year anniversary picture, then the 25-year, then one thing led to another and we played together for four or five years (last year included).”

Phillips, 55, has played in every Hoopfest alongside his brother, Greg, 63. The two are playing again this year.

“There aren’t many of us left,” Garrick Phillips said. “We talk about it, like how long are we going to be able to do this? It’s been a long time.

“I was just a college kid that first year. I don’t know how long we’re going to ride it out. Don did it as long as he could. … It’s very inspiring.”

Hailing from a strong basketball family, the Phillips brothers started playing at Hoopfest for the competitive nature of the tourney. They won the first open division bracket, a 64-team field, in Year 2 of the event, while Garrick was a collegiate player at Puget Sound. Their teams claimed several more titles over the following decades as the tournament expanded from one street to a nationally known occasion.

“We showed up to win every year,” Greg Phillips said. “We took it very seriously, but not quite as much the last few years. We’ve won a lot of them. I’ve lost track. Now it’s just kind of a summer ritual for us.

“There’s something special about Spokane and (Riverfront Park) and how the community embraces it. It’s organized madness … and how they pull it off with the mass of humanity downtown, that impresses me more than playing nowadays.”

As time has passed, Hoopfest has become more about supporting family and catching up with friends, past teammates and opponents, and preserving “the streak,” Garrick noted.

Like Jones, the Phillips brothers have played alongside many teammates and formed lifelong bonds.

“It’s an annual holiday,” Garrick Phillips said. “We schedule around Hoopfest. I’m gonna have 10 different courts I need to get around to.

“Basketball is secondary now. It was a big deal earlier, but now it’s about the relationships and having that time together. … It was probably after about 10 of them when my brother and I locked in and said, ‘There’s not many people who have played in all of them, so let’s keep going.’ To keep that streak alive, especially with my brother, and to be a part of the Spokane basketball community, it’s really special.”