FORNEY, Texas — On a cold December morning, long before most of the town was awake, Kevin Simpson stood on the sideline of a youth football field watching a team his own child did not play for. The game didn’t require his presence. His title didn’t demand it. But for Simpson, the president of the Forney Youth Athletic Association, showing up is not an obligation. It is the point.
“That’s who we are,” Simpson said later. “Spartans show up.”
In a city growing as fast as Forney, youth sports have struggled to keep pace. Families often face an unsatisfying choice: low-cost leagues stretched thin by numbers, or elite travel programs that price out many households. Simpson saw both options as incomplete. What he wanted, he said, was something harder to define — a program with structure, accountability, and heart, where children were coached hard and cared for harder.
So he helped build one.
A League Built From Frustration — and Conviction
FYAA began not as a polished organization, but as a response to dissatisfaction. Practices without standards. Seasons without continuity. Too much improvisation, too little intention.
Simpson and a small group of volunteers started from scratch — recruiting coaches, organizing families, and setting expectations early. Over time, the program grew into a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit serving Forney and nearby communities. Today, FYAA fields teams in tackle and flag football, baseball, softball, basketball, cheer, drill, and dance, all competing under a single banner: the Spartans.
But Simpson bristles at the idea that FYAA is “just a league.”
“We didn’t evolve into a sports organization,” he said. “We evolved into a culture.”
The Idea Behind the Spartans
The language Simpson uses is deliberate. Culture. Standards. Identity. In his telling, FYAA exists to produce young leaders as much as young athletes.
Wins matter, he says, but not as much as what happens when a child is tired, frustrated, or disappointed. Those moments — how a player responds to correction, how a teammate supports someone who didn’t start, how a parent handles adversity — are where the real lessons live.
“The kids are the stars,” Simpson said. “Our job is to build the stage.”
Not every child will be the quarterback or the point guard. Most won’t. FYAA’s leadership believes that acknowledging that reality, rather than pretending otherwise, makes the experience more honest — and more valuable. Contribution, in this system, is measured not only in points but in effort, reliability, and attitude.
Different, and Proud of It
In Forney, FYAA’s intensity has not gone unnoticed. Early on, Simpson heard the program described — half-jokingly, half-critically — as a “cult.”
“At first, that stung,” he admitted. “Then I realized what people meant was that we were unified.”
FYAA embraces that unity, while drawing a clear line: everyone is welcome, but not everyone will want the standards that come with being a Spartan. Accountability applies to players, parents, coaches, and administrators alike. The culture is protected carefully, sometimes at the cost of faster growth.
“That’s not arrogance,” Simpson said. “That’s honesty.”
A Facility Earned, Not Bought
Nothing symbolizes FYAA’s philosophy more clearly than Sparta, the organization’s indoor training facility at 12810 County Road 217.
Sparta was not funded by investors or corporate sponsorships. It was built almost entirely by volunteers — parents, coaches, and community members donating labor, tools, and time after work and on weekends. The space includes an indoor turf field, classroom and film-study areas, coach planning rooms, and walls honoring service and effort.
“It’s not just turf and walls,” Simpson said. “It’s proof of what happens when a community decides to build something together.”
The facility has given FYAA consistency during unpredictable Texas weather and a home base that reinforces the idea that this program belongs to its families.
Expansion With Restraint
FYAA continues to grow, but Simpson is careful about how. Softball was added recently. Cheer and dance have expanded significantly, including the introduction of competitive dance. The baseball program now includes a select component designed to deliver high-level development without the price tag typical of travel teams — possible, Simpson says, because leadership remains volunteer-driven.
The goal is not to become the largest youth sports organization in North Texas. It is to become one of the most complete.
“Growth is a blessing,” Simpson said. “But it comes with responsibility.”
Leadership Shaped by Experience
Simpson’s intensity is rooted in his own childhood. He grew up without a consistent father figure, navigating instability and loss before finding structure and mentorship through sports. Coaches, he says, filled gaps that family circumstances could not.
“Sports gave me boundaries,” he said. “And men who showed up.”
Today, Simpson volunteers dozens of hours each week during peak seasons. There is no salary. No off switch. His wife, Brittany, jokes that he doesn’t know how to do anything halfway.
“I’m a builder,” he said. “This is personal.”
The Measure of Success
The moments Simpson values most are not championships — though FYAA teams have won their share — but scenes of collective commitment: parents staying late to clean facilities, families packing stands for teams their children don’t play on, more than a thousand people attending the annual Spartan ESPYs to celebrate youth athletes.
Once, after an FYAA team won a title, a league official looked around at the sea of Spartan jerseys and asked if Forney had traveled en masse.
“Yes,” Simpson replied. “We always do.”
For FYAA, success is not defined by the final score. It is defined by whether children leave with pride, discipline, and a sense of belonging that lingers.
“If a kid looks back years later and says, ‘I miss being a Spartan,’” Simpson said, “then we did it right.”
And in Forney, that may be the hardest — and most meaningful — victory of all.
