From Oregon prison to college basketball captain, Brett Hollins helps prisoners find purpose and hope

Earlier this month, Brett Hollins embarked on a road trip to Oregon from his parents’ home in San Antonio. He didn’t come to experience the high desert splendor of Central Oregon or to snap selfies at Multnomah Falls. He came to present workshops and play basketball with inmates at six prisons across the state, including Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario and Warner Creek Correctional Facility in Lakeview, both of which he once served time in. 

In 2017, Hollins was sentenced to nearly six years in prison after pleading guilty to stabbing two men during a brawl that broke out during a party he and his friends attended near the campus of Southern Oregon University in Ashland. In 2021, then-Gov. Kate Brown commuted his sentence after he had served nearly four years of his six-year sentence.  

The Oregonian/OregonLive sports writer Bill Oram has extensively profiled Hollins’ amazing journey of rehabilitation, including his decision to return to Ashland to play college basketball at Southern Oregon University, where he graduated last June and served as a team captain. More recently, Oram wrote about Hollins’ return to Snake River to play basketball and inspire adults in custody with workshops he developed through his new nonprofit, The Side Door Foundation. Hollins joins us, along with Michael Reese, director of the Oregon Department of Corrections, to share their perspectives on rehabilitation and the obstacles to it inside and outside of prison.