Anders and Bjorn Broman are two of Winthrop’s finest basketball alumni. From Duluth, Minnesota, the brothers arrived in Rock Hill in 2015 – Bjorn as a freshman and Anders as a junior transfer from South Dakota State.
Together the duo amassed 1,649 points for the Eagles (1,000 for Bjorn in four seasons and 649 for Anders in two) and helped lead the team to an NCAA tournament appearance during the 2016-17 season. Now, the brothers are using their knowledge of the game they love to help others through their own company, Broman Academy.
“Our mission is to help – whether it’s a kid or a professional player, a college player, high school, whatever level player it is – our goal is to help them achieve the best of their abilities,” Anders Broman said.
“That’s through hard work. That’s through practice. That’s through training. No one is just born really good at something. It takes time, it takes effort, and we want to help those kids – whether it’s a high schooler, whether it’s a middle schooler, whether it’s a professional player – we want to help those players achieve the most that they can physically achieve,” he added. “Physically and mentally.”
Though the Bromans only officially launched their company earlier this year, it’s something they had talked about for a while.
“We had different ideas back in high school… but our mindset was always, ‘We can start up in Minnesota. We can come back home and kind of spark basketball back in our hometown,’ because when we played high school there was a big spark of basketball, because it’s a hockey city,” Bjorn Broman said.
“But then in college Anders got connected and did some internships with basketball training academies down here, and we kind of figured out that this is a hot spot,” he added.
One company the brothers worked with was Venture Basketball, a training program that allowed them to work with players of all ages, including NBA players like Malik Monk, Seth Curry and Troy Daniels. While they described working with the pros as “thrilling,” they said it can also be mentally exhausting because those workouts have to be so detailed.
“We love working with the pros, but we also love the challenge of working with younger kids. While we were growing up, we had older players that came back and helped us, that took us under their wing, so we want to be able to do that.” Anders Broman said. “I’ve had more satisfaction in helping a kid make a ninth grade basketball team than working with an NBA player.”
“Pros are fun, but the kids – there’s just some connection you get with them. They look up to you. Everything you say, they soak it up and they try to learn,” Bjorn Broman said. “There’s just some connection that makes kids really special.”
The Bromans said their experience under Pat Kelsey at Winthrop now helps them in their role as trainers and coaches.
“A good amount of what we teach and what we try to be is what he taught us,” Bjorn Broman said. “How he connects with people – he’s in the community, he’s reaching out. His energy never stops, and we do that same thing in our workouts. We can’t lack energy for one second.”
“A lot of his sayings that he used with us or with our basketball team, we still use. ‘Never delay gratitude.’ Different things of that nature that are staples of the Winthrop basketball program,” Anders Broman said. “His attention to detail [and] how he runs a program – that’s how we want to run our business.”
“There’ll be times where we’re talking to a group of kids, and it’s just natural now,” Bjorn Broman said. “We’ll say one of his sayings, and afterwards we’ll get in the car and be like, ‘we just said exactly what Kels taught us when we were a freshman five or six years ago. We just gave that same talk.’ So it’s fun to see his impact on our company and what we do.”
Along with Kelsey’s influence, another impact the Bromans have seen on their company is their Christian faith. In college, both were involved in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and served for two years each on the FCA Leadership Team.
“Our biggest calling is our faith,” Anders Broman said. “That’s something we relate to sports. God’s blessed us with these abilities. God’s blessed us with these bodies, because you know what? There’s a lot of people that would do anything – kids that are in wheelchairs, kids that have different disabilities – that wish that they could spend an hour out on the basketball court.”
“We want to make the most of [these abilities] to honor and glorify Him then. Because He’s the one that’s given us these abilities – whether it’s us, whether it’s the kids, whether it’s the professional players – whatever your ability is, God gave it to us, so let’s use that to bring glory to Him.”
Despite starting their company around the same time the COVID-19 pandemic reached the US, the Bromans said their business is doing really well. In December, Broman Academy is set to hold its own basketball league for third through sixth graders.
“We’re going to have just under 100 kids in it,” Anders Broman said. “We have a waiting list for some of the divisions because so many kids wanted to join.”
The brothers also conduct individual training with clients daily, working with up to ten people per day. They said the biggest struggle now is finding gyms to host their events in, but they hope to soon get back to holding more group training events as well, all while following COVID-19 guidelines.
