Hoopfest Dreams

Rory Cosgrove’s passion for sports started early in life. “If the sport involved a ball, I was either watching or playing it,” he says. The family budget could only afford one, though, so his mother gave him an option: basketball or soccer. “I chose basketball. And that choice changed my life.”

He played it throughout his childhood, culminating in a runner-up finish in the 4A boys basketball state tournament for South Kitsap High School. It was in college that he began playing in Spokane’s annual Hoopfest—the world’s largest 3-on-3 basketball tournament. Hoopfest has been raising money for charity for more than 35 years, donating $2.5 million to local orgs and helping to build more than 30 basketball courts. Cosgrove still participates in the tournament when time allows.

He finds parallels between hoops and his appellate practice at Carney Badley Spellman in Seattle, including “performing at the highest level, as a team, when the moment demands it, and leveraging each team member’s strengths to outwork and outsmart the opponent.”

He adds, “I play in a local recreational basketball league with my fellow washed-up middle-aged dads. Sports may not be life, but they make life richer.”