SAN ANTONIO – About a 10 years ago, two San Antonio parents started a local AAU basketball team with the hopes of cultivating a culture and a family for their kids.
Now, with their sons being heavily recruited by Division I schools, they say it has developed into something bigger than basketball.
“It’s a family,” Dee Flemings, co-founder of SA Future, said. “It’s a family and I think that was always the thing for us.”
Finding a new family through athletics is many parents dream for their kids.
“That’s what makes future,” Flemings said.
SA future is a local AAU basketball team that Flemings and Koty Cowgill started it about a decade ago with the hopes of trying to help cultivate that kind of family for their own kids, while also providing a platform to showcase their talent on a big stage.
“It’s a ton of like minded individuals that all have the same goals and the same drive,” Flemings said.
“A lot of these kids are smart, they’re handsome, they’re engaging, they have a great core group of friends, but this is where they can find their challenges,” Cowgill added.
“We don’t do tryouts,” Flemings said. “We find kids that fit the family and they grow together.”
And that is exactly what happened: the same core group of kids have played together since elementary school, and now at least five of them are getting division one college offers – including Dee’s son Kingston, who is one of the top recruits in the nation, and Koty’s son Camden.
“As a parent, that’s all you can really ask for is to have truly great kids, truly great families, kids that are similar in their purpose to kind of have that opportunity to grow and develop together and push each other too,” Koty said.
“Our bond is different, obviously,” Camden said. “Like when we fight on the court, we know that it’s just basketball. It starts and stops on the court. Once we get off we don’t really care about that.”
“We’ve seen all of each others worst moments,” Kingston said. “The times we have gone 0-10 in a game from three, times we have gotten yelled at and were crying, we have all seen each other cry, so just being that close to one another on the court and off is special.”
For their parents, it is a dream come true seeing their kids have this kind of success both on and off the court.
“Like, we started future in first or second grade for Kingston and Cam and they have been in the gym since that,” Dee said. “And their countless ours in the gym every day, five six days a week just over and over again. We have gone through a lot of failures, tons of ups and downs, so it’s great to see them experience this and what they have worked so hard for.”
