SPOKANE, Wash. — Riverfront Park is buzzing as Hoopfest check in is underway.
The tournament is expecting almost 20,000 players this year.
Check in runs until 7 p.m. Thursday. If you miss that time frame, you will also be able to check in from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday.
Volunteers are hard at work making sure everyone knows where they will be playing this weekend.
Many of these volunteers have been coming to Hoopfest for decades, including Kathleen Sullivan, who runs the check-in stations. She’s worked at every Hoopfest over the past 37 years.
“The number of teams started at 500 and now we average close to 5,000,” Sullivan said. “There was one year where we had 7,000. We never know where we’re going to end up, but we always have the support of the basketball community.”
Sullivan and her team of more than 150 volunteers have been working for months to prepare for the next three days.
“We are so fortunate here in Spokane to have the volunteer base that we do,” she said. “They’re the people that keep coming back every single year. We give them a t-shirt and bottle of water and a Lunchable and they still keep coming back. They do it for the same reasons we do.”
Sullivan says it’s been amazing to see how much this tournament has grown. She’s looking forward to watching some games this year.
There is also a player change booth in case any teams want to add a player to their team before 8 a.m. on Saturday.
Sullivan says there will be five teams of 35 volunteers working to check everyone in and make sure they get their t-shirts. If the lines are long, Sullivan asks everyone to be patient while the volunteers try to get people through the check in process as fast as possible.
COPYRIGHT 2026 BY KXLY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
