A new TV pilot revisits 1990s Houston through the eyes of a woman coach, exploring race, gender, and belonging in a changing city
Hoopztown, a TV pilot read live Nov. 8 as part of the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, has been nearly a decade in the making. Created by Fleurette S. Fernando—associate dean and director of the Arts Leadership program at the University of Houston—the story follows Maya Hernandez, a former athlete returning to coach a girls’ basketball team while caring for her cancer-stricken mother. The setting, the fictional “Buffalo Bayou High,” is unmistakably Houston: sprawling, diverse, messy, and full of contradictions.
Fernando began writing the story after watching her own daughter play basketball in junior high and high school.
“It was so empowering for her,” she said. “And I was amazed that there were so few stories about this kind of experience for young girls on television. I truly believe the experience strongly contributed to her success. I would love if this story and the ideas in it could inspire more girls to participate in sports.”
Her daughter earned a full ride college scholarship for track and field and is now in law school. Through Hoopztown, Fernando wanted to explore what happens when women and girls find power in physicality—in being “in their bodies and appreciating what they can do, not just how they look.”
A different kind of Houston story
The story is set in 1996, the same year the Women’s National Basketball Association was founded, and a few years before the Houston Comets made history. Fernando said she’d seen a cultural shift – girls were watching athletes who looked like them win championships.
“I wanted to highlight the Comets’ legacy and what it meant for women in this city,” she said.
At the same time, Hoopztown looks at the deeper social layers of Houston’s public schools. Maya’s new workplace is a mix of privilege and struggle, racial tension and quiet solidarity. The principal’s office sports a Confederate flag. Kids nonchalantly smoke hashish. Teachers juggle overpacked classrooms and outdated textbooks. The girls’ team lacks resources but not spirit.
Maya is no ordinary athlete — she’s a hometown heroine, a gifted player who once came within reach of going pro. But that doesn’t stop some of the male staff from dismissing the WNBA, certain that it won’t last long.
A packed audience attended the Hoopztown pilot script reading at Six Foot Studios. (Photo by Juhi Varma)
In the audience at the live reading at Six Foot Studios, the script’s details landed with a hum of recognition. Buffalo Bayou High draws inspiration from schools like Heights High (formerly John H. Reagan), Waltrip, and Lamar—institutions that have long mirrored Houston’s demographic and cultural evolution.
Elizabeth Sosa Bailey, who co-produces Hoopztown and grew up in Oak Forest, said her own experience is reflected in the story.
“I am half-Mexican and moved back home to Houston when my father was diagnosed with cancer,” she said. “The mix of communities, the sense of home, the push and pull between pride and pain—it’s all so Houston.”
Her mother’s illness is never far from Maya’s mind, a reminder of the emotional labor that women—especially daughters—often perform.
“It’s a common theme for women at any age….we become caretakers for family members should anyone fall ill,” Fernando said. “So many of my girlfriends, cousins, colleagues also find themselves having to take on this responsibility at every adult stage of life…and people often don’t talk about this unpaid labor in families and communities and the stress it can cause women.”
The dual roles of coach and daughter also let the story examine a different kind of strength—one that doesn’t come from victory alone.
“For women educators and coaches, especially in the early years of Title IX, it could be demoralizing,” Fernando said. “It’s a calling, but also a challenge. I hope this story inspires young women to keep going, in whatever field they find themselves.”
The cast and crew of Hoopztown pose with a basketball. (Photo by Juhi Varma)
The pilot’s title episode, Rebound, captures that spirit literally and figuratively. If Hoopztown is picked up beyond the pilot, we’ll see Maya coaching her team of misfit players, with the gym likely becoming a metaphor for recovering and rebuilding oneself after loss.
Where personal meets political
In one of the script’s early scenes, Maya walks into the principal’s office to find a stuffed buffalo head mounted beside a Confederate flag. The principal, affable but oblivious, calls it “Southern pride.”
Hoopztown captures these contradictions: the pride of the South and its painful symbols, the camaraderie of the court and the inequities of the classroom, the optimism of youth and the exhaustion of caregiving. (Maya’s mother seems to be in denial about her condition.) Its characters—Black, brown, immigrant, first-generation—are not archetypes but products of Houston’s intertwined histories.
“I wanted audiences to understand a different (maybe more accurate?) side of Houston and Texas than they are used to seeing in the media,” Fernando said.
For the producers, bringing Hoopztown to life has itself been a community effort. Fernando and Sosa Bailey plan to film the first episode next year as a vertical series—designed for mobile viewing on platforms like TikTok and YouTube—before expanding to a full 10-episode season.
“It’s like community theater, but in a film medium,” Fernando said. “We’ve already seen so much local support.”
“I believe this story truly connects to all inner city and inside the loop neighborhoods of Houston which are racially and historically diverse,” said Nancy Dunnahoe, communications advisor for the project.
For now, Hoopztown remains a pilot on paper, but like the girls running drills in the final scene, it’s warming up for what comes next.
To support the project, please visit gofundme.com/f/help-film-the-hoopztown-tv-pilot.