The Spellman family basketball legacy began on a dirt court outside a house in south Phoenix, where Robert Spellman built his own hoop with wood salvaged from alleys around the neighborhood.
There, Robert practiced for hours in the Arizona heat, starting at 5 a.m. and continuing until well after dark with the help of cars lined up with their headlamps on. He would hoist about 3,000 shots per day, and in the process became a local pick-up legend who eventually spent time in the Suns organization, two years in the Global Basketball Association and then 17 pro seasons internationally.
With that lineage — and Robert’s wife, Kimberly, also has a significant basketball background — it’s not hard to see how the couple’s daughters emerged as premier scorers in Colorado high school basketball.
Entering the weekend, Mountain Vista junior Kennedy Spellman led the state in scoring at 28.3 points per game, ahead of blue-chip prospect Brihanna Crittendon, McDonald’s All-American Alexandra Eschmeyer, and another Division I recruit in Valor Christian’s Peyton Jones. Kennedy’s younger sister is making it rain, too, with sophomore Kiarra Spellman averaging 18.3 points.
Together, the sisters are the top scoring tandem in the state, averaging a combined 46.6 points while emulating their parents’ diehard dedication.
“My daughters are always saying, ‘Dad, we want to get as good as you,’ and I tell them, ‘Well, I don’t know if you’re ever going to be able to put in as much time as I did out on that dirt court,” Robert Spellman said with a laugh. “Basketball was all I did, most of the time.
“But I know my daughters, they really do have the it factor like I did, like Kimberly did. I believe they are Division I players. I believe they have the potential to play professionally. Sometimes it feels light years away from now to where they want to get to, but I believe they’re on the ascent.”
Kimberly is in her second season as Mountain Vista’s head coach, while Robert is a varsity assistant who also coaches the lower levels. Before his pro career, Robert played at South Mountain Community College and later the University of Idaho. Kimberly played at Western Colorado.
Both parents spent many years on the Hoop It Up 3-on-3 circuit, which is where they met. Their long list of accomplishments rub off on Kennedy and Kiarra.
“Our parents are big-time competitors who really like to win, and that always inspires me to work harder,” Kennedy said. “… And like both my parents, I feel like I definitely play with a chip on my shoulder every time I take the court. Same with Kiarra.”
With a few weeks left in the regular season, Kennedy is focused on maintaining her spot atop the scoring leaderboard while also helping put the Golden Eagles in a good position to make a playoff push.
For the past couple of years, Kennedy and Kiarra have taken a page out of their dad’s playbook. A few times a week, they get into the gym for a 5:30 a.m. workout with Robert, getting up around 1,000 shots each while their dad schools them on hundreds of moves that he’s individually named and numbered.
Then there’s the games of 1-on-1.
“It’s usually really competitive between Kennedy and me, and it goes both ways winning-wise,” Kiarra said. “We’ve gotten into some fights over it. It’s an ignore-each-other-for-three-hours type of thing afterward before we finally have to start talking again.”
That intensity translates over to Mountain Vista practice, where junior guard Ariana Akey is consistently wowed by the sisters’ sharpshooting.
“(Both sisters) focus a lot on shooting in game-time speed, and that really translates,” Akey said. “Earlier this week, Kennedy and I were doing a drill where we were partnered and we were shooting five threes (from different spots) around the arc. She went through three stations, so 15 shots, with a swish every time. And she finished with like two misses in 30 shots in the entire drill.”
Kennedy has been lighting up scoreboards since her freshman season at Sand Creek. That winter, she finished second in the state in scoring, with her 27.2 average trailing only Crittendon’s 31.2.
Despite the breakout season, Kennedy wasn’t selected for first or second-team CHSAA all-state in Class 5A — a slight that motivated the family’s eventual migration to Mountain Vista.
“People said stuff like, ‘Well, she’s not in a hard conference,’” Kimberly said. “So we wanted to get somewhere where there were no excuses when she played well. We wanted to play the best in Class 6A (and in the Continental League), and be compared to the best.”
While excelling in Colorado’s top classification, both sisters carry their parents’ careers with them on the court.
This year, Kiarra started wearing Kimberly’s Kobe 4 Gold Medal shoes. Kimberly, who was part of five national championship teams on the Hoop It Up circuit, won four gold medals in the Wyoming Senior Olympics last summer. She took first in the free throw, hot shot and 3-point competitions, and her team also won the 3-on-3 tournament playing against men — all while wearing those Kobe 4s.
“My scoring average has gone up since I started wearing them,” Kiarra quipped. “They’ve definitely got some of my mom’s magic in them.”
Kennedy wears her dad’s number, 24, as she tries to emulate his scoring ability. Robert once scored 87 points in a pro-am summer league game. Kennedy’s high this year is 42, and she’s scored 30 or more seven times. She’s still waiting on her first Division I offer, but Robert, who laments coming up short of realizing his dream of playing in the NBA, believes colleges will come calling in due time.
“What I’m trying to teach my kids is that sometimes, your career doesn’t go as planned,” Robert said. “Maybe you don’t get the hype you should. But you’ve got to grind it out and keep going until you can get found.”
Beyond her two high-scoring daughters, Kimberly says her “magnificent seven” cast has the potential to make a playoff run.
That core features standouts in other sports in Akey (the star quarterback on Mountain Vista’s championship flag football team), Kylie Brookfield and Molly Gaffney (two elite goalies for Real Colorado) and another sister duo in Riley Rivera and Leanna Rivera (both committed to play lacrosse at Florida Southern College).
Mountain Vista hasn’t advanced past the first round of the playoffs since 2021, and the program’s best finish was a Sweet 16 appearance in 2015. But Kimberly believes that with Kennedy and Kiarra leading the way, the Golden Eagles (12-5 and ranked No. 24 in the latest CHSAA Selection & Seeding Index) have a chance to top that this year or next with a trip to the Denver Coliseum.
“We’re not big, so we have to play fast and buy into our positionless offense,” Kimberly said. “Since we have so many key players who play other sports, we’ve been developing our chemistry as the season goes along.
“Obviously other teams are super concerned with double- or triple-teaming Kennedy, or trying to double Kiarra, so the rest of our team is making an adjustment to be ready for when they’re open. We have the talent to overcome those double/triple teams and pull some upsets in the playoffs.”
Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.