Davante Hardy celebrates after hitting a contested layup and drawing a foul during the Rip City 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament. Hardy was one of several Special Olympics athletes competing this year.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
After sinking a contested layup and earning a trip to the free throw line, Davante Hardy wagged his finger like Dikembe Mutombo, the shot-blocking former NBA center.
"I'm a big man, so I got to be there in the paint when it counts," Hardy said. "But it's not about me. It's about all of us."
With more than 500 athletes competing across 48 courts, the Rip City 3-on-3 Tournament is a pickup basketball fan's dream come true. But make your way through the crowds to the center court on Saturday and you'll find a series of games unlike the rest.
What makes these games stand out?
“It’s really about the athletes that are playing," said Dewayne Hankins, vice president of marketing and digital with the Portland Trail Blazers.
And no, he doesn't mean the hodgepodge of former college and semi-pro players scattered across the tournament; he's talking about the competitors like Hardy in the tournament's small but competitive unified bracket.
Featuring a mix of players with and without intellectual disabilities, the unified bracket is an opportunity to see Special Olympics athletes in a way most Oregonians aren't used to.
"What unified sports does it it takes our athletes and pairs them non-disabled players," said Torre Chisholm, chief development officer with Special Olympics Oregon. "They play together as teammates, as equals."
They take center stage on the tournament's first day of action.
Rex Stewart, left, looks to pass during a game in the Rip City 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament. Stewart's team won the unified bracket in the tournament's inaugural year.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
"It's pretty cool," said Rex Stewart, one of Hardy's teammates catching a few minutes of shade between games outside Moda Center on a hot July Saturday. "I'm glad everybody came out to play basketball and is having a good time."
Rip City 3-On-3 is unique for its partnership between the Portland Trail Blazers and Special Olympics Oregon, or SOOR. Now in its third year, the tournament is run by the NBA franchise, but all proceeds go to SOOR's mission of changing lives through sport. And it's not just a charity event. A key draw of the tournament is the chance to see Special Olympics athletes showcase their skills on the court.
As Margie Hunt, CEO of SOOR said, Rip City provides an opportunity to break down walls and blow up stereotypes about Special Olympics and intellectually disabled athletes.
"People tend to often think of Special Olympics as one big summer games each year. They think of track," she said. "Well, the truth is Special Olympics is so much more than that. It’s every season, it’s year round and it’s statewide and it’s run by 7,000 volunteers every year."
And the athletes are every bit as competitive and basketball-crazed as their non-disabled counterparts. Which is part of the goal of SOOR's involvement in the tournament: to give the athletes a rare opportunity to put their athletes on a stage equal with some of the state's top amateur basketball players.
"Those of our constituency who get to be involved in unified sports are just more confident and they are treated as equals," she said. But more importantly, according to Hunt, is the impact the unified division has on the non-intellectually disabled population in Oregon.
Mark Eberhardt goes for a layup during warmups for one of his team's games in the unified bracket of the Rip City 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament.
Bradley W. Parks / OPB
"Those who don’t have intellectual disabilities who are on the [unified] teams are changed forever. They will forever look at people who are different or have disabilities in ways they never have before," Hunt said.
And in the end, for the organization that strives to improve the lives of Oregon's largest disabled population, that's the best part of this two-day tournament.
The Special Olympics athletes "know that they’re different," she said. "But what helps them the most to build their confidence is when they get to do things that help them realize that they are pretty much like everybody else."
Stewart and Hardy's team, the Warriors, have reached the unified tournament's finals each of the first two years. Both were hoping to make it back to that stage or, as Hardy put it, "reach that mountaintop."
Stewart said he'll be at the tournament every year it's around.
"[Rip City] is basically a bunch of other kids and adults of all different ages who are playing tournament basketball and they get to play, too. All that does is build their confidence," Hunt said.
OPB's Bradley W. Parks contributed reporting.