Diverse New Mexico youth athletes and a community mentor joining hands in a basketball gym.

Albuquerque, New Mexico • Youth Sports + Youth Development

Opportunity Starts With an Assist.

Southwest Suns helps young people participate, prepare, and thrive through athletics, practical preparation, and stronger coaching environments. Our four connected programs create pathways for youth, families, coaches, organizations, partners, and supporters to take meaningful action.

Explore Our Programs See Our Impact

Participate → Prepare → Thrive

Youth sports opportunity is bigger than getting on a roster.

A strong experience depends on access, preparation, and the adults guiding the environment. Southwest Suns connects all three.

PARTICIPATE

Young people need real ways to get in the game, build skill, belong to a team, and grow through sport.

PREPARE

Athletes are better positioned to compete and learn when practical barriers do not keep them from arriving ready.

THRIVE

Coaches shape the daily experience. Practical coach learning helps adults respond to real situations with greater clarity and purpose.

Four Programs

Four programs. One mission.

Southwest Suns Basketball

Direct basketball and youth-development opportunities designed around participation, skill, standards, and growth.

Explore Basketball

Get Her in the Game

A girls' participation and development program that helps create clearer pathways into sport and continued growth through it.

Explore Get Her in the Game

Game Day Fuel

A preparation program that helps eligible youth-sports cohorts reduce practical barriers to appropriate pre-competition fuel.

Explore Game Day Fuel

Coach Development

Free tools for coaches: Season Under Pressure for realistic decision practice and Coach Board for drawing, sequencing, saving, and sharing basketball plays.

Explore Coach Development

Find Your Path

Find the path that fits why you're here.

Youth or family: Looking for a way to participate? Start with Basketball or Get Her in the Game and check the current opportunity status.

Coach: Want practical tools you can use right now? Explore Coach Development to practice decisions in Season Under Pressure or draw and share a play in Coach Board.

Organization: Looking to strengthen coaches or collaborate around youth sports? Explore Partnerships or Coach Development for Organizations.

Supporter: Want to help Southwest Suns sustain and expand mission work? Learn what the programs do first, then choose a giving path that fits your intent.

Evidence / Impact

We report what we can verify.

Southwest Suns separates completed work from goals and plans. Our Impact page shows verified program evidence as it becomes available, explains what we measure, and identifies where evidence is still developing.

See Our Impact

Current Work

What Southwest Suns is working on now

This space highlights active, approved work without turning plans into accomplishments.

Now underway

Game Day Fuel — Initial Cohort

Highland Boys Basketball is the first approved Game Day Fuel cohort. Delivery activity is not yet reported here as completed.

See the Current Cohort

Now available

Coach Board V1

A free basketball play-authoring tool for coaches. Draw actions on half or full court, run the sequence, save it, reopen it, and share it.

Open Coach Board

Work With Southwest Suns

Build something useful with us.

Southwest Suns works with schools, youth organizations, businesses, foundations, community partners, and organizations seeking stronger coach development. Partnership starts with a clear purpose: who is being served, what the relationship adds, and what each party is responsible for.

Start a Partnership Conversation Coach Development for Organizations

Support the Mission

Help Southwest Suns keep opportunity moving.

Charitable support helps Southwest Suns operate programs, maintain the infrastructure behind them, and respond to mission priorities. You can support the organization where needed most or express a preference for an approved program.

Support the Mission

Wear the Mission

DREAM. FREE SPORTS. Two ways to wear what we believe.

DREAM is about possibility, identity, and what comes next. FREE SPORTS is a statement about where we want youth sports to go: toward a future where money is never the reason a child cannot play.

Explore the first Southwest Suns merchandise release.

Merchandise purchases are retail transactions and are separate from charitable donations.

Shop DREAM + FREE SPORTS