Austin Fritts has been immersed in sports for as long as he can remember. For this Lakewood, Colorado native, despite playing an array of sports growing up including baseball and football, it was in the game of basketball where he found an unmatched space of community, competition, and creativity. Three pillars that ignited a fire within him to play the sport at the highest level, and officially swayed his focus towards basketball completely. During his time in high school—at Green Mountain High School—, Austin became intrigued by the world of dunking. Inspired by his favorite player of all time, Derrick Rose, he began to model his game after Rose's and go all in on the athleticism and skill set required to be a great dunker. It was up from there! Despite facing a series of setbacks that prevented him from pursuing a professional playing career in basketball after high school, Austin discovered another avenue that would keep him close to the game, allow his creativity on the floor to run wild, and showcase his talent with the world: content creation. He hasn't looked back since. Not only has he amassed a large following with over 670,000 followers across social media platforms, but he has also collaborated with an array of organizations including the Denver Nuggets, Boston Celtics, Meta and Red Bull. As he grows his personal brand as a professional dunker further, Austin is excited to launch his own basketball camps in Denver, give back to the next generation of athletes, and continue working with different brands in the industry.
Let’s start with your journey early on in high school! You attended Green Mountain High School and played basketball there all four years. Could you share more with us about your journey there?
Yes! So I started Varsity as a freshman and that's when I was 5'9". I was a small guy and that's when the three-pointer was my best aspect. As I got older and started to grow, dunking was just always so cool. My favorite player of all time is Derrick Rose. I analyzed his game a lot and that's kind of who I grew up trying to play as. Through my high school career there, I was three times All-Conference, was All-State my senior year, and it was fun. That was at a time where social media wasn't the biggest—Instagram existed, but it wasn't like organic reach—, and it was kind of just like your hometown stuff. I was the Top 2 player in the state for my class and it was a good time. I didn't win any championships there, but we had some good state runs.
When did you realize that you wanted to make that transition into the world of professional dunking?