NORTHGLENN — A young Doug Anderson wanted to sky as high as the Kalamazoo pickup kings.
When Anderson was growing up, he lived behind a gym where the elite men’s players in his Michigan hometown ran midnight basketball games. So before he started hooping in eighth grade — and long before he won 26 dunk contests in the U.S. and abroad, and spent six years with the Harlem Globetrotters — he took late-night walks to the gym.
“I can still vividly remember the intensity of basketball,” Anderson recalled. “Just seeing them go at it made me want to take my own game seriously. And honestly, I really wanted to beat them because I knew I made it if I could beat them.
“The highest jumpers in our city played in that league. And I would watch them and be like, ‘Yo, I want to do that.’”
Now, the 34-year-old Anderson is a headliner in a similar league here in Colorado — one its founders hope will both inspire and serve the next generation of Front Range basketball stars while also giving ex-pro and ex-college players an outlet to continue their passion.
Time2Grind launched last month as a seven-team league featuring a slew of players with accomplished resumes. While prize-money circuits and tournaments are more common in basketball-centric states, Time2Grind is unique here in that the winner of the league gets a $10,000 payout.
Outside of that financial incentive, there’s also a higher cause. The money from Time2Grind’s ticket and concessions sales supports Athletes United — a local non-profit that sponsors youth basketball players who lack the financial resources to participate in club basketball.
As league director Tiffany Beaty explained, Time2Grind is cultivating the next generation of Doug Andersons while simultaneously giving the area’s current Doug Andersons an opportunity to continue competing at a high level. Tiffany co-founded the league and Athletes United with her husband, Tydran Beaty, another former Harlem Globetrotter who played professionally for 13 years across five continents.
“I was talking with Ty about how our non-profit can get more innovative with ideas about how to raise more money for kids to play,” Tiffany Beaty said. “As I’m saying that, he’s like, ‘Yeah, I agree, but I really want to keep playing basketball with the guys I do (invite-only) runs with each week.’
“And then we realized we can do both at the same time.”
Time2Grind launched in October and plays Friday nights at The Courts in Northglenn. The Beatys believe it’s a format that can be replicated throughout the year.
Two weeks ago, the league’s top contenders squared off, with Beaty and Anderson’s team, Realtor for Hoops, taking on a Cherry Pickers squad stacked with former Colorado high school basketball stars.
While The Courts donate court time to the league because of its affiliation with Athletes United, each team’s $2,500 registration fee goes directly toward the $10,000 payout to the winner of four-team playoffs on Dec. 22. Each team has roughly eight to 10 players, so it’s a few hundred dollars per player to participate with the hopes of nearly tripling that investment.
The Realtors for Hoops versus Cherry Pickers showdown, won by the former, featured all the elements one might expect from a pickup game of highly skilled players — only it was legitimized with referees, uniforms and a scoreboard. Tickets are $10, but the majority of the spectators were friends and family of the players.
Most of the players for both teams were show-and-go, arriving right around game time. A couple got there after tip, including Cherry Pickers point guard Dominique Collier, a former Denver East and CU star. With no warm-up, the 29-year-old didn’t bother taking off his Buffs sweats. He just threw on purple shoes and let it rip starting in the second quarter.
“I just like playing basketball, and that’s the same with a lot of these guys out there — we don’t want to give it up,” said Collier, now a Denver East assistant and personal trainer. “The money potential is for sure an attractive thing, but playing ball on Fridays — especially with the commitments I have with coaching all the time — I cherish the chance.”
The game brought plenty of high-flying hops, including an incredible two-handed put-back slam by Anderson that revealed how he’s won so many dunk contests, the most recent of which came a year ago in Switzerland.
“I can still do whatever I want to dunk-wise,” Anderson said with a smile. “That (put-back) made me feel like I was in high school again. It came off the rim perfectly, and I planned it at the perfect time. When I was hanging on the rim, it was partly because I was really excited. The other part was my finger got caught in the net holder and I had to get it unstuck. It was straight Amar’e (Stoudemire), Shaquille O’Neal-style.”
The central, scrappy elements of pickup hoops are still present in the startup league.
Aside from Anderson’s jaw-dropping highlights in the Realtors for Hoops-Cherry Pickers game, there was plenty of jawing, questioning of the referees, and even a double-technical on both teams. But there’s more than just bragging rights and a chance at a little extra spending cash on the line for some of the players.
Ex-Rangeview star Tyrei Randle is one of them. The 27-year-old last played professionally in 2023 in Azerbaijan, and has been working a 9-to-5 in the years since, trying to get back overseas.
“I’m just trying to stay in shape and stay ready whenever the opportunity presents itself,” Randle said. “There’s so much talent in this league, so this is about me staying in a rhythm, staying sharp. Getting paid to do this while seeing the world has always been my dream, and I’m not giving up on it. That’s why I’m out here every Friday.”
Just outside the lines, a young man keeping score highlighted the league’s ultimate “why.”
Isaiah, 13, works the scoreboard each week for Time2Grind. He’s one of the star players for Tydran Beaty’s club team, and he receives financial assistance from Athletes United so he has the opportunity to play.
The eighth grader’s father was recently incarcerated. That led the Beatys to become his legal guardians, and the young hooper soaks in watching Tydran play each Friday.
“This is really cool because not a lot of kids get to experience this kind of basketball life, and I’m so lucky for the support and love they’ve shown me,” said Isaiah, whose last name is not included in this story at the request of the Beatys due to privacy considerations. “They’re hard on me, but that’s how it should be when you’re a kid and play sports. Everything I’ve been through, it’s built my character.
“When I watch Ty, I focus on his game, take some of his stuff and put it into my game. Same thing with the rest of these players; they are all really good and have played all over the world. But I wouldn’t be here (at Time2Grind) or playing myself without Ty and Tiffany. They’ve helped me mentally and physically, on the court and off it. And I’m not the only one — they’ve helped so many other kids.”
It’s that kind of impact that the Beatys hope to continue to expand.
Since Athletes United launched in January, it has enrolled 120 players in its program, which is run through Tydran’s club, GrindTime Elite. About a third of those players pay their own way, while the rest are sponsored by Athletes United or by families the non-profit has recruited. Tydran sees Time2Grind as a key component of Athletes United’s fundraising going forward.
“If we can just continue to build this (league) and also have those kids that want to come into our program and want to work, and want to use basketball to get somewhere with it, that is my vision,” Tydran Beaty said. “We’re starting to get calls from guys asking for next season, so we’re picking up traction. We expect to have another league with more teams in the spring.
“It’s older hoopers still showing out, trying to get that (prize) money and, in doing so, helping the younger ones. I can’t think of a better (giveback scenario) than that.”