The summertime is one of the most fun periods of the year for basketball fans. The WNBA season is in full swing, speculation of NBA offseason moves is at an all-time high, and pro-ams nationwide are the gifts that keep giving. Pro-ams are leagues that feature amateurs and professional players facing off against each other, typically during the college basketball and NBA offseasons in the summer. These leagues are free to attend, and many NBA players like Lou Williams and Trae Young said they enjoy playing in them for the kids who can’t afford to attend NBA games.
One of the rising summer pro-ams in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area is the SwinCity league, which was started by Tony Swindle.
Swindle gave details about the league during a recent interview.
How did this league get started?
I started training in 2007. Then, I transitioned to exposure camps in 2012 for boys and girls. The girls’ side of it just caught fire, and we went national with it. With the boys, we just kept it regional.
The relationships I built from 2012 to 2018 were basically the group that’s now graduating and some that are still in school. In 2018, I rebranded. We tapped into the youth side … we also created the SwinCity magazine in 2018, so that kept everything afloat. In 2020, we were like, “What’s going on?” Because the sports world was at a standstill and nobody was able to go outside. In June 2020, Trump blessed people with the option to get the SBA loans, the PPP. Instead of buying Coach bags and taking five trips everywhere, I reinvested it back into my business, which is what you were supposed to do. In the fall of 2020, we rebranded the league with the high school side of it — it caught fire. I flew in my guy from Dykeman [announcer]Chaching. Then, we did the middle school league. We did the middle school league, and that caught fire as well because of our uniforms … then, I was talking to the Skinz league, out of Oklahoma City, and I was like, “Man, I don’t know [if I want to include pro players]” and he was like, “Man! You need to do it! The magazine was crazy. You need to go and do the pro league!”
I [talked]to God about it because I didn’t plan on including pros until 2024. Heading into 2021, I told a couple of my guys I was going to do it and they were like, “Man, there are already six here in the DFW. What’s going to make yours different?” I said, “Hey, if you don’t like it, I’ll refund you your money.” They tapped in, enjoyed it and we’ve been rocking ever since. Last year, we became NBA- and NCAA-certified.
When can people in the area watch this league?
We’re going to be [playing]primarily on Saturdays and Sundays. We play at Trinity Leadership at Cedar Hill. The starting time is 12:30 and the last game is at 7. We have 16 men’s teams and 12 women’s teams.
