In 2018, Harlem native, Alex Taylor, founded Hoop York City, a women’s basketball community dedicated to closing the gender play gap in her city by creating more opportunities for women in NYC to play basketball.
Taylor wanted to make it easier for women to find spaces to hoop on New York City without always fighting for them. Since founding the program, HYC now boasts over 400 women in its network and has collaborated with some major names in the sportswear world.
In 2020, Taylor was featured in a five-part series supporting the Adidas and iFundWomen initiative, providing mentorship and grants to women who reimagine sport.
Speaking to the Red Bull Academy, Taylor reveals that she almost walked away from her lifelong love after discovering that her high school coach had been having an inappropriate relationship with a teammate.
“Obviously at that age, we’re so impressionable,” she told the outlet, “You live by [your coach’s] words and you look at them for mentorship, guidance and safety,” adding, “We weren’t offered any support or counseling…at least for me the way that I thought about basketball, I associated it with him for so long.”
But basketball kept calling, and Taylor eventually stepped back onto the court. Taylor and a close friend set up a basketball mixer to encourage women to hoop.
“Of course, being the person that I am, [if] I’m really passionate about it, I will go to the end of the earth to get it done and make it the best possible thing,” she says, “She gave me an inch, and I took a mile.”
Taylor landed a few sponsors at the event and the rest is hoop history.
More than just being an available space for women, Taylor worked hard to ensure the spaces were also safe. She made it her mission to ensure that participants were able to hoop free from harassment.
“It became so important for me to create safe spaces,” she explained. “Because not every court is a safe space…for women to be able to play free [from] abuse and harassment.”
You can find out more information about Hoop York City here.
