Hoopla celebrates 25 years of basketball rivalries, memories in Salem

Competitive tensions are already running high as Salem’s annual Hoopla tournament gets underway. 

The tournament brings thousands of people to the streets around the Oregon State Capitol downtown to watch the 3×3 street basketball tournament, which runs through Sunday.

The event is free and open to anybody interested in posting up on lawn chairs to spectate.

This year is the event’s 25th anniversary. Jason Unruh, the tournament’s director, said while many participants are in it to have fun with friends and family and to shoot some hoops, others have waited all year to settle the score. 

“There are so many long-standing rivalries in this event. We have kids that played in it as 7, 8, and 9 year-olds that are now in their early 30s,” Unruh said. “When you only get to do this once a year, it stings when you lose, and you can’t just have another game the next week to make up for it. You are waiting a whole nother year to get your revenge.” 

Unruh said he and his father started the tournament 25 years ago after they were approached about helping with a basketball tournament fundraiser to benefit a local drug and alcohol awareness organization. 

It was the late 1990s and Unruh and his father were running a basketball training facility called The Hoop and were known as “the local basketball guys.” The Hoop has since reopened as PAC Salem.

The idea was to create a fundraising tournament event similar to the Spokane Hoopfest event in Washington, and so the idea for Hoopla was born. 

In the early stages of planning the event, Unruh was incredulous about the possibility of staging the tournament in front of the Capitol, but it eventually worked out. 

“The crazy harebrained idea to have it at the Capitol happened real quick. That first year we had 151 teams,” Unruh said. “We were good at running basketball tournaments and we did it as a good event, but we had hand written brackets on poster boards that we stapled to a piece of plywood.”
Fast forward 25 years and the event now has nearly 1,100 teams competing for six days, and has its own smartphone application so spectators and participants can keep track of teams, schedules and scores. 

The main Hoopla 3×3 tournament games will be played on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and on Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

The event expanded to run six days in 2022, and includes special events, like the free Unified Basketball Clinic which brings high school players with and without disabilities together to play basketball. 

Unruh said he gets emotional when he thinks back on how much Hoopla has grown over the years. Part of the sentiment comes from the central role the sport of basketball played in his family’s life growing up. 

“Basketball has always been in our blood. Something that we love. And just to be able to translate that into what we’ve created with Hoopla, and down here at the Capitol, it has been one of the greatest things in my life,” Unruh said. “All we want to do is bring people together and run a great event for our community and we are very proud of what we do.” 

Several street closures will take place during the tournament and the area around the Capitol building will be refashioned into 64 half court basketball courts where teams of players as young as 7 and older than 50 will compete.

Teams must register for the event prior, Unruh said, and will play 25 minute games, or until one team reaches 35 points.  

A full schedule of Hoopla events can be found on the event’s website.

Hoopla street closures 

These streets are closed through Sunday, July 28, at 9 p.m.

• Northeast State Street between Northeast 12th Street and Northeast Cottage Street
• Northeast Waverly Street between Northeast State Street and Northeast Court Street
• Northeast Winter Street between State Street and Northeast Ferry Street
• Northeast Cottage Street between Northeast State Street and Northeast Court Street

Then, starting Thursday, July 25, at 6 p.m., to July 28, at 9 p.m., the following streets will be closed:  

• Northeast Cottage Street between Northeast State Street and Northeast Chemeketa Street 
• Northeast Court Street between Northeast 12th Street and Northeast Church Street 
• Northeast Winter Street between Northeast Court Street and Northeast Chemeketa Street 
• Northeast Capitol Street between Northeast Court Street and Northeast Chemeketa Street 

Drivers traveling through the area should find alternative routes during the event, the city said.

Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790.

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