HOOPBUS FOUNDING STORY
“ …Later that night I got a message from Nick with what only could be described as elation!”
“You are a basketball bus driver!? I have this idea for this basketball school bus we have to get on a call to make this happen!”
Brandon Recess a hooper, bus driver and entrepreneur from Florida connected with Nick Ansom as he was in Venice beach during the summer of 2019, “I was invited out to the VBL having no idea what the VBL was (Venice Basketball League) . After convincing Nick to let me play in a game, Nick saw I could hoop and we exchanged Instagram pages. Later that night I got a message from Nick with what only could be described as elation!
“You are a basketball bus driver!? I have this idea for this basketball school bus we have to get on a call to make this happen!”
Brandon driving The Hoopbus
Brandon had played basketball his entire life and had the chance to chase his dreams to the professional ranks. The game took him all around the world and allowed him to connect and grow with others.
“Basketball did things for me in life I never imagined it would. Since stepping away from playing and coaching my online persona was, “The Bus Driver”. As The Bus Driver I hosted hundreds of podcasts and even took my own school bus from Utah to Chile for a podcast tour.
So when the opportunity to become a Basketball Bus Driver I felt everything I had done was meant for that moment.”
One week later Brandon soon found himself in a car with Nick, Elliot (founder of Dunk), and Chris Costello (VBL local photographer) as they were off to look at school buses in the California desert and make this dream a reality.
“Nick was in love with the first bus we saw as it came from the “Rims of The World” school district. It seemed to be a sign from God that this was the bus Nick wanted to be The Hoopbus”
Bradon did a test drive and some maintenance checks under the hood. Everything looked good, so they headed back to Los Angeles where Chris, Nick and Eliot put together a crowd funding that evening and they were off to the races. After raising $23k in a just a few weeks Brandon was driving back out there again with Nick and Victor Corral to buy this bus and drive it back to Venice.
Brandon got to work immediately driving the bus around to several metal shops and lumbar yards to start building out the framework of The Hoopbus.
Nick and Zer adding the letters and getting ready to install the hoop
“Nick gave me and the rest of the builders a month for our launch date of Jan 12th 2020. In that time I sorted out all the paperwork and legality. Lori Power (a local Venice artist) and so many others donated their homes and time to pulling out seats, laying down wood and getting this bus ready for a day we had no ideas or real plan for what is was going to be”
January 12th rolls up and Nick had a bunch of local hoopers and influencers join in celebrating the Hoopbus’s first tour around Los Angeles stopping at all the basketball courts on the westside from the famous Watts court that was in the movie White Men Can’t Jump and ending at it’s home court of Venice beach.
“Seeing people from all around the world fly to Los Angeles to donate their money and time to be a part of a launch for me really displayed the beauty of humanity. The success of this day became the blue print to what The Hoopbus would be: A mobile basketball machine evangelizing the game. Letting any and everyone use this vehicle for their ideas and dreams.”
Then the news hit, Kobe suddenly passed away.
It rocked the basketball community. They decided to paint the bus with purple trim, add a mural to the roof and college a section of the ceiling by the drivers seat of Kobe pictures. His spirit was to live within the bus.
The next adventure was soon ahead. Nick got connected to Bill Curry who ran Breakthrough nonprofit out in Chicago who was hosting an All Star weekend for the community of East Chicago with a basketball tournament and celebration. Nicks dream was coming alive, back on the road sharing the love of basketball with communities around the US.
“The next few weeks before our first Chicago tour was the real test. With Nick in Italy and the bus left to Eliot, Chris, Victor and I how do we keep the momentum of this new creation no one had seen before let alone understood its power?
This wasn’t Brandon’s first rodeo, but there were several precautions that needed to be taken to make sure a bus with basketball hoops could make it through a cross country road trip in the middle of winter. No matter how much we demanded on that bus from making it through a blizzard in Albuquerque or the night in Davenport Iowa where it was -9 degree Fahrenheit it was the little bus that could because THE GAME DON’T STOP.
Despite the epic cold weather, the bus made it to Chicago and had a successful All Star weekend called SHOW CHI LOVE.
This was just the start of The Hoopbus adventures to coming…
“No creative idea is ever to crazy whether you come up with idea or are presented one somewhere. You should always give people whether they are friends or family the time of day to share their crazy endeavors. You don’t know where, when or how a good idea will come from.” - Brandon Recess
Connect with Brandon
Written by Kelley Koski