Brian Sandifer started his journey in the world of sports at the age of just four years old. For this Saint Paul, Minnesota native, basketball and football were the two sports he quickly became immersed in growing up. It was during his time in high school though that Brian realized his best route would be to pursue football at the highest level. Upon graduating from high school, Brian began his collegiate career playing football at Normandale Community College prior to receiving a scholarship to the University of Northern Iowa. It was only up from there. Over the following six years after graduating college, Brian embarked on his professional career and played arena football. Throughout that time, he also began thinking about opportunities to create a stage and an outlet for his son and his friends to showcase their abilities in the game of basketball. After stepping away from the game, Brian founded his own basketball program, “Grassroots Basketball.” From hosting tournaments to fundraise the team to traveling around the country for different showcases to give his athletes exposure, Brian continued to explore new avenues year after year to grow his program. In 2013, Brian joined forces with his longtime friend Larry Suggs and his Sizzle program. The rest is history. Since then, Grassroots Sizzle has grown into an AAU powerhouse—putting over 400 kids on scholarships throughout the last 20 years, having a Top 5 NBA pick in Jalen Suggs and a projected No. 1 pick for the 2022 NBA Draft in Chet Holmgren, and over 15 kids playing professionally in Europe. As Grassroots Sizzle continues to expand, Brian is looking forward to creating more opportunities for young athletes to earn college scholarships and achieve their dreams of playing the game at the highest level.
How was that transition from being a professional athlete to now creating your own organization in the industry like?
It was big for me. One of the hardest things to do when you lose that competitive edge, and are not competing anymore, is finding somewhere to channel that aggression and those competitive juices. I just found it in doing what I was doing with the game of basketball. I coached football, coached my kid in football and basketball, and then ended up being around a lot of other (former) athletes like Tai Streets—who played for the University of Michigan, played in the NFL, and was Derrick Rose’s and Eric Gordon’s AAU coach. We played against those guys. There's only a handful of NFL guys who are ex-pros and even do this. Tai Streets and myself are two of the main football guys to ever host shoe-sponsored programs—I think he's with Nike and I went with Under Armour. We're two of the only football guys really to have top-tier AAU programs (as well).
Could you share more with us about Grassroots Sizzle’s mission and programming?
We're a youth mentoring program. At Grassroots, mentoring starts daily with us. Basketball and sports (in general) have been an outlet for so many inner city kids to stay out of trouble. Obviously we can't save the world—since I've been doing this, I have probably had 12-15 players of mine murdered due to gang violence—, but it's just all about mentoring and having a big brotherhood. For example, I had an alumni game and we probably had 60 of my former players come back and play. You know, they come back, sign autographs, and do things to give back to the community. Ninety percent of the kids that I've had in the past have some affiliation with gangs, violence, or something like that. But when they come in the gym with us, they let bygones be bygones. We don't have any cops or no security there. Everybody plays, participates, and then we go to live our lives. So the “grassroots” part has been more of a mentoring (opportunity). Then, I use basketball to take the kids to these college showcases to get seen, earn scholarships, move on, and try to further their education through athletics.
One of the program's focus is on educating the whole person—emphasizing leadership both on and off the court. How important was it to create a program that embodied these pillars?