A revolution is underway in Fargo-Moorhead
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The way Monty Gordon and his colleagues at Inspired Athletics (iaplaytoinspire.com) are going about their business isn’t new to the highly competitive world of youth basketball. In the state of North Dakota, however, it’s practically revolutionary. In a very short time frame the Fargo-Moorhead-based organization has attracted many of the elite prospects in the region for skills training while becoming a significant factor in AAU basketball. Even Gordon is surprised at how quickly things have come together.
“100 percent!” he said. “I mean I’m coming to an area where I am trying to change the dynamic of basketball, the approach of basketball, the culture of basketball with minimal resources. I’m not from here. My wife does have family here but she was raised in Phoenix. I expected 10 years down the road by the time my daughters were playing that I could change the culture. But families trusted in my skill work first and then they started trusting my coaching ability and it has happened so fast. Sometimes it doesn’t seem real.”
We travelled to Fargo last weekend to get a first-hand look at what Gordon and company are doing. The workout was compelling. The talent pool was deep. And the enthusiasm was infectious. It isn’t hard to see why Inspired Athletics is making an impact.
An opening in the marketplace
Inspired Athletics is both a training organization and an AAU club. The goal of the program is to offer more than just on-court workouts by providing an “Athlete’s Lifestyle Program” that is designed to enhance the mental and physical development of players for the long haul. “My philosophy is to create a platform where kids can actually get better instead of parents paying fees just for kids to play in tournaments,” Gordon said. “At the end of the summer we need to see improvements and build off of that going into the winter school ball season.”
That’s quite different from the legacy AAU programs in North Dakota which have traditionally waited until the end of the spring sports season before gathering to play in a handful of tournaments in June and July. Practice sessions have been limited and the teams have mostly played in secondary brackets at AAU events. Players who wanted more than that – kids like North Tartan veterans Logan Nissley Logan Nissley 6'0" | CG Bismarck Century | 2023 State ND (Nebraska) and Lauren Ware (Arizona) – have had to join Minnesota AAU clubs.
There was clearly an opening in the marketplace for something more intense. “Basketball here was a seasonal thing or a second sport. It wasn’t prioritized,” Gordon said. “When teams from here would get started in June they would go down to the Twin Cities and the teams there would have already played 5 or 6 tournaments. We would get our butts kicked. We didn’t feel like we belonged on the court with them. There was no real development happening.”
That wasn’t good enough for Gordon, who has gone to war at a high level in AAU, college and professional basketball. “I am a competitive guy,” he said. “I come from a big city, the inner city where no matter how big, how strong, how tall you are when we step on the court we are equal and we’re going to battle it out. That’s the approach I take with my girls. Nine times out of 10 we are the underdog when we step on the court. But the one thing that people know about us is we’re going to come and play hard. We’re going to give it 100 percent effort. We rely on our defense. We can score the basketball, too, but we hang our hats on getting stops.”
That approach is highly attractive to a parent like Jonathan Donnelly, whose kids have been training with Gordon since 2019. “Traditionally teams from North Dakota haven’t been very successful competing in the top divisions down in Minneapolis and certainly not travelling to Milwaukee, Omaha or Ames,” said Donnelly, who is a commercial banker in West Fargo. “Monty’s teams don’t always win but we’ve competed against the best in Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota. As a coach he gets the most out of his players.”
Partnering with North Tartan
One of the most important steps Inspired Athletics has taken is to develop an affiliation with national AAU power North Tartan, which plays on the Nike EYBL circuit. That has enabled the Inspired Athletics teams to play in better tournaments, compete in top brackets and get more advantageous court placement for enhanced exposure. That’s something smaller independent teams struggle with. The relationship with North Tartan came about as a result of a lifelong friendship between Gordon and former North Tartan coach Marqus McGlothan, who is now coaching at Division 1 Eastern Illinois.
“Me and Marqus are like brothers. We have known each other basically since we learned how to tie our shoes,” said Gordon, who played in the DTA Academy program run by Marqus’ dad Marty. “When I first started my girls program I had a conversation with Marqus. He connected me with Bill Larson and Gerard Coury from North Tartan. We were able to have a sit down and make it work for the girls out here.”
The philosophy Gordon operates by was learned first-hand while growing up on the rough-and-tumble North side of Milwaukee where life was challenging and the basketball competition was fierce. “We started right away in 4th grade,” Gordon said. “Our practices were very controlled, very intense if you know what I mean. These were no-nonsense type of practices so it was instilled in me right away: We’re going to come here, we’re going to go hard, we’re going to get something out of it, we’re going to get better and we’re going to learn the game the right way. It stayed with me.”
Tyrone Gordon, Jr, (Monty’s given name) played college ball in Kansas and Alabama before landing at Dakota State University in Madison, SD. where he led the team to the only NAIA Elite 8 Appearance in school history. He met his wife Kelsey when she played at UW-Milwaukee before finishing her education at North Dakota State University. She’s now Operations Program Manager at Microsoft. After college, Monty played overseas before being hired as the Player Development Coach for the Texas Legends, the NBA D League affiliate of the Dallas Mavericks. He then trained professional players in the United States and in Asia before settling down in Fargo where he and Kelsey are raising three daughters. Together they formed Inspired Athletics in 2018.
The organization currently has a small skills lab in Horace, a fast-growth community southwest of Fargo. In December they’ll be opening a 28,000 square foot facility with two hardwood courts, a sports performance area and film rooms. That’s a huge step forward for the club and the families who’ll take advantage of it. “We were initially attracted to Monty’s training style because it was more advanced than anything else in the area,” said Donnelly. “He has connected with my girls and he breaks things down in a way they can understand. I have three kids in the program who all learn in a different way and he is able to connect with them individually.”
A collection of talent
The number of high-level prospects now training and/or playing with Inspired Athletics is quite remarkable. This fall, two IA players – Morgan Korf Morgan Korf 5'7" | PG Pelican Rapids | 2026 State MN of Pelican Rapids and Aria Garrett Aria Garrett 6'1" | PF Dillworth-G-F | 2026 State MN of Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton – made it into the Minnesota Freshman 50, our first ranking of the Prep Girls Hoops Class of 2026. Four players from that team are on the North Dakota Watch List. There will be more down the road. The club’s 2026 group includes the likes talented guard Johnica Bernotas Johnica Bernotas 5'7" | PG Breckenridge | 2026 State MN of Breckenridge, MN, Fallon Passanante Fallon Passanante 5'6" | SG Fargo Davies | 2026 State ND of Fargo Davies and Lilia Donnelly Lilia Donnelly 5'6" | SG Horace | 2026 State ND of Horace. Among the best 2027s are big Jordan Christofferson of Horace and Rylee Routledge of Minot. The 2028 crew is loaded, including elite prospect Lakyn Donnelly of Horace and fellow North Dakotans Violet Richman of Tower City and Siera Nipstad of Kindred, plus Minnesotan Peyton Hoffman of Climax.
Lakyn is a unique talent we have already written about several times. “Laykyn is a workhorse,” Gordan said of the little guard with the amazing handles, silky smooth shot and elite understanding of the game. “Basketball is her thing. Anything that she needs to do to become the player that she wants to be, to reach the goals that she wants to achieve, Lakyn isn’t afraid to put in the work.”
Another athlete at the workout on Saturday was freshman Maggie Fricke Maggie Fricke 5'7" | PG Minot | 2025 ND , a D1 prospect out of Minot who played this season for the Minnesota Stars and moves over to North Tartan 2025 EYBL next spring. She travels across the state of North Dakota (540 miles round trip) to do skills training with Gordon. “I work a lot with Maggie,” he said. “She came and worked out one time about a year and a half ago and we just clicked. We’ve built a great relationship with her family. It’s strictly about development. She doesn’t play on any of my teams. Would I love her to? For sure! But that isn’t what’s best for Maggie right now.”
Korf is also a D1 prospect being courted by several mid-major programs. “We are very lucky to get Morgan because I was new and nobody knew of me,” Gordon said. “But she came in for a couple of training sessions, her family watched me coach those girls and they just took a chance. I don’t know how long I will be able to keep Morgan because honestly the way she plays she can go play on pretty much any team she wants.”
If Korf should leave to play at the EYBL level for North Tartan, for example, Gordon would be OK with that. Similar to what Dyami Starks is doing with Starks Elite in Duluth and Ryan Hulke with the Minnesota Rise in the Mankato area, Gordon’s goal is to gather the best regional prospects and prepare them for the highest-level opportunities that might come their way down the road. “I build rapport with the kids so they know I care about more than just winning. Don’t get me wrong, I love winning but the parents know that I’m going to coach their daughters honestly,” he said. “What I’m trying to do is create a platform where if I have a girl actually good enough to play on one of those teams, when they go down there they are ready to go.”
Disruption for good
So what’s the long-term goal? What does the end game look like? “The toughest thing now is being able to maintain and keep our kids. That is the hardest part,” Gordon said. “You build them up and now they get noticed by so many other clubs, especially the clubs that have shoe deals and sponsors. My biggest thing is I just focus on staying in the gym and giving my all, caring about the girls not only between the lines but outside the lines, and honestly just hoping for the best. I can just be the best version of me and that’s what I give these kids every time we are in the gym.”
In every business there are disrupters, the kind of organizations that come along and change the paradigm of an industry or a region. Like Toyota did to General Motors, Wal-Mart and Target to Sears and J.C. Penney, Amazon to brick-and-mortar retail. Inspired Athletics is in the process of disrupting youth basketball in the state of North Dakota and western Minnesota. Gordon knows IA’s approach is ruffling some feathers but right now he is managing to ignore the haters, improve his operation, forge long-term relationships and develop high-level talent. The fruits of that labor will really show up three or four years from now. “This is what I do. I train and I coach, every day all day, on and off the court,” he said. “I know my program isn’t for everyone but I look at all of it as a positive. People are talking about us. That means we’re doing something great.”