- December 4, 2025
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One pair of sneakers is unlike any other among the symphony of squeaks heard on Monday nights at the Longwood Park gym. It’s those basketball shoes that aren’t basketball shoes at all.
They’re white Adidas sneakers — designed for running, not hooping. In them stands Wes Wilcox.
At 39 years old, and playing in a league full of athletes older than himself, he saves his best kicks for those nights when he’ll have to play the hardest.
“I like to think I’m still young enough and spry enough to go 50% with these older guys and still be good enough for our team to win,” Wilcox said.
Teammates and opponents alike rarely let him hear the end of it. He simply laughs off all the friendly jabs and hits the hardwood, equally as eager to compete as everyone else is.
No mere matter of foam or rubber has slowed him down.
Wilcox is a member of the Bunker League, a four-on-four amateur men’s basketball age group league, which holds its games at Sarasota’s Longwood Park. In his first full season, the 6-foot-8 forward broke the single-season scoring record by averaging 39 points across six contests, doing things nobody has done before in the organization’s 17-year history.
As a player for Kari’s Face Painting — all teams are sponsored — Wilcox is one of six on the roster, and one of 43 overall participating in the 40-plus “elite division.” His squad entered the playoffs on Oct. 13 as the No. 1 seed after wrapping the regular season at a perfect 6-0.
“It’s a good vibe, because (founder and commissioner Dennis Bunker) prioritizes safety. The officials are really good,” Wilcox said. “I love all the guys. They’re really down to earth. Nobody loses their cool or anything.”
His hoops journey began decades before he was draining step-back 3s and converting tough layups against middle-aged men.
A nerf ball was perpetually in his hands as a preschooler. He shot into a wicker basket in the living room of his Roselle, Illinois, childhood home until it had fallen apart from wear and tear.
Hand-eye coordination came naturally to Wilcox, so as a taller kid, basketball quickly became his sport of choice. But he never saw himself making a career out of it.
“I would joke with my friends that I picked the wrong one,” Wilcox said. “It’s the hardest in the world to make professionally."
Not once did he score a point for his varsity boys’ basketball team. While attending Lake Park High School in Roselle, he never even played a minute.
Instead, his after-school hours were spent running his own business of mowing lawns in the community. It was a chance encounter — well after graduation — that pushed him finally to get serious about his longtime love.
As a 21-year-old in 2007, Wilcox played in an amateur league much like the one he knows now, but with guys who were around the same age as he was then. One of them was an assistant for the Elgin Racers, a semi-professional team in the now-defunct International Basketball League.
The former assistant asked where Wilcox played and assumed the answer would be a collegiate or European team.
“This is where I play. Right here, on Saturday mornings, with you,” Wilcox said.
The man was stunned. On the spot, he asked Wilcox to try out for the Racers. The 21-year-old happily obliged and earned a roster spot, beginning a two-season stint with the club until it folded in 2008.
Two years passed without organized basketball in his life. He was itching to get back in the game, and considering the options in front of him, college seemed the most viable path.
After all, he still had his amateur status. The Racers never paid him a dime. They envisioned Wilcox eventually using his talents to secure a basketball scholarship elsewhere in the country.
With the help of that former assistant, Wilcox played a year of JUCO in 2010-11 with Harper College of NJCAA Division III. The Palatine, Illinois-based program proved to be the perfect launchpad, as he wound up with a scholarship from Northwood men’s basketball of NCAA Div. II in Michigan.
He averaged 14.1 points per game and 37.7% from 3-point land as a three-year starter for Northwood. The forward ultimately played 85 games between the 2011-12 and 2013-14 seasons.
Later on, Wilcox even tried his hand at playing professionally in China for a year. He still looks back fondly on the time he met 7-foot-9 Sun Mingming, who at one point, held the Guinness World Record for tallest basketball player.
“You have all these wealthy Chinese businessmen that are always trying to entertain the local villages and local cities, because they go crazy for basketball there — way more than even here,” Wilcox said. “They field the best American players that they can find for a reasonable amount of money, and then they pay us, but they’re also betting each other money.”
Burnout forced him out of basketball. He never grew a distaste for the game, but years and years of multiple practices per week had taken a toll.
In August 2016, he took a job with SeaSucker in Bradenton as West Coast Sales Manager. He now serves as vice president of International Sales for the company and lives in St. Petersburg.
Five years off the court had come and gone by the time an unknown caller gave him a ring.
“A random guy called me up. I just had no idea who he was, what he looked like, what he did,” Wilcox said. “He explained what he put together. It would’ve been hard for me not to say yes if it were right down the street, but it was a 45-minute drive.”
It was Bunker. He got the number from one of Wilcox’s friends who he had hired for contract work on his house. Since one of Bunker’s teams only had three players for their next game, he was in search of someone to step in so that the team wouldn’t have to forfeit.
Wilcox planned on blowing him off and making excuses, but after some more convincing, he eventually agreed.
That first game in June didn’t turn out so well for him. Wilcox played poorly in a loss for the team. Still, Bunker pleaded with him to return the following week, since the same player would be out.
“I needed to get on the treadmill a little bit, shoot a little bit, maybe once a week for an hour at a park,” Wilcox said. “At least try to get a little bit of feel for the ball back.”
He indeed played that final game of the spring 2025 season, and when their draft neared for fall 2025, he formally tossed his hat into the ring.
Now, he’s the best player on the best team in the league, not far removed from dropping 60 points on Sept. 15.
His gear doesn't match his game.
Then again, no extra inches or style have been necessary.
“I don’t want to lace up the high tops, full tightness, and get my butt whipped out here,” Wilcox said.
