Jason Joyce
Basketball players at James Madison Park.
James, center in blue shorts, documents ‘an escape route from tough times we don’t really talk about.’
Many words could be used to describe what Terrell James does within the Madison basketball community: organizer, promoter, hype man, creator, influencer. He’s not a coach or a league commissioner, at least not yet. Grassroots leader might be most apt.
James produces videos for the Real Hoopers Only accounts on Instagram and YouTube. On the surface, they are collections of highlight reels taken from pickup games at various locations: James Madison Park, Warner Park Community Recreation Center, Princeton Club, the Nicholas Center on the UW-Madison campus. Dunks, three-pointers, spin moves, no-look passes, sometimes with commentary added by the players or James himself.
The videos depict a community James didn’t necessarily start, but works to organize, grow and sometimes inspire.
“I had a love for the game and I was getting cut from teams I felt like I was good enough to play on, but politics,” James, 26, says with a shrug. “So I decided to record myself and it eventually came to me: ‘Why not do hoop sessions?’ It kept me out of trouble. I grew up in a rough neighborhood. I use this to keep people like me out of trouble, so we have stuff to focus on.”
He sets up times, dates and locations for the sessions, which bring together an expanding group of men — some as young as high school, as old as late 40s — to play a series of games to 15 with loosely organized teams. At the park, he sets up his iPhone on a tripod and captures video with an app that works with a gimbal, a device that allows the phone to rotate, to pivot back and forth, following action on the court.
Meanwhile, James plays, settles arguments, warns about parking cops in the area, or amuses his children on the sidelines.
“I bring speakers for music. Sometimes I bring a DJ and set up a barbecue,” he says. After the games he reviews the recording on his phone to pull out highlights for Instagram and edits the full action into longer videos for YouTube. He has taught himself to add graphics to the videos and even an elaborate intro using AI. Views and shares have increased and he’s now in touch with other creators who contact him with compliments and offers to team up on “collabs.”
But the focus remains on the community of “real hoopers.” One of them, a rapper who gives the name Lotus (Like the car or the flower? “Both!”) proudly calls himself a “day one member” of the RHO crew.
“This is medicine, this is my get-away, this is where I meditate,” Lotus says. “When you come to James Madison, you better know you’re gonna have a rough time. It’s raw. But it’s the love of the game. People have passion out here. That’s what makes it so good. [James’ videos are] giving them another shoutout in the city.”
James refers to the games as an “escape route from tough times we don’t really talk about.”
“There are people out here who still have goals. I would like to go to college and play there. We’ve got some guys going to basketball camps to try out to play professionally overseas,” he says. “It’s a community to get in shape, so if you have dreams, you can still follow your dreams.”
