Kylan Boswell to bring 'Bam-Bam' strength to Wildcats' basketball program, whether in 2023 or sooner

If not for the 2015 biographical movie “Concussion,” in which Will Smith played a doctor battling the NFL over his brain injury research, Kylan Boswell might not have committed to the Wildcats’ basketball program earlier this week.

Well, he might have given UA football coach Jedd Fisch a call. Football could have easily been Boswell’s destiny, at some college, somewhere.

Maybe as a quarterback or middle linebacker, the two positions Boswell played in his Pop Warner days. Or maybe even as a defensive lineman, where his Samoan-blooded grandfather played for Illinois in the 1980s.

That possibility was apparent pretty early in Kylan Boswell’s life. Like within minutes. He was 10 pounds and 22 inches long at birth, with energy and strength straight out of the crib.

“Bam-Bam,” his parents started calling him as a toddler, after the abnormally strong “Flintstones” character, and for good reason.

His mother, Ashley, once took him out of a baby jumper that was attached to a door frame and asked the boy to follow her into a bedroom. He did so only after ripping the jumper off the door and taking it with him.

“I grew really, really strong,” Kylan said before announcing his commitment to Arizona on CBS HQ. “I used to break things a lot. So they kind of made that nickname up.”

It stuck. Kylan not only broke things but could throw and run at crazy speeds.

“Very much like the (‘Flintstones’) character,” said Brandon Boswell, Kylan’s dad. “Freakishly strong. It was very much about his strength. He could take a ball and throw it exceptionally well.”

So while growing up in the shadows of the University of Illinois, where both his parents worked, Kylan played football along with soccer and basketball.

By the time he neared high school, Boswell’s family was impacted by viewing “Concussion” at different times. He pushed football aside.

“Who knows when he saw it,” Brandon Boswell said. “But his mom was like, ‘Let’s focus on basketball.’”

So he did. It just took a little work to keep playing it at an increasingly high level.

Kylan Boswell was in sixth grade when he knew he could excel in basketball during a trip to Southern California, where his mom’s family lives. An uncle was running a basketball camp with a team that had a spot open up at the last minute.

Kylan not only suited up but led his team to a win.

A year later, Boswell was a seventh-grader playing for his eighth-grade middle school team when he hit the game-winning shot to send his team to the state tournament.

After that, more challenges became necessary. He signed up for club ball with the Champaign Heat and then the prestigious Chicago-based Meanstreets club, which led Brandon Boswell to drive his son to Chicago often.

During those years, Kylan Boswell began settling into the point guard role, which he is expected to play at Arizona — though he wasn’t yet a high-level college prospect.

So by 2018, his parents opted to move to California, to be closer to Ashley’s family and to give Kylan a better opportunity to make a name for himself in basketball.

“The University of Illinois doesn’t recruit from that pool (in Champaign) so we said, ‘Let’s find a bigger opportunity. Let’s go to California and see how it goes,’” Brandon Boswell said.

The move quickly began to pay off. Kylan Boswell was named to the MaxPreps.com all-freshman third team in 2019-20 at Colony High School in Ontario, California, earning a scholarship offer from Eastern Washington. But COVID-19 hit right before the 2020 spring and summer evaluation periods that are critical for rising sophomores and juniors.

What’s more, even though Boswell moved again to play for Corona Centennial High School in 2020-21, he couldn’t play for most of the year. COVID-19 concerns in Southern California kept the 2020-21 high school season from starting until late March.

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So as of a year ago, Boswell still had just the one low-major scholarship offer from EWU.

“He was unheard of as a player,” his father said.

But things opened up quickly last spring. By the time Kylan Boswell led Centennial to wins over Mater Dei and Sierra Canyon in early June, he was firmly on the radar.

By June, when he led Centennial to a Section 7 Championship in Glendale, he was blowing up: Boswell said then he had offers scholarship from Stanford, Illinois, UCLA, USC, George Mason and Eastern Washington. Arizona offered him before the second week of Section 7 events.

During an interview during the first week of Section 7, Boswell said UA assistant TJ Benson told him Arizona coaches were “coming down here to watch us, so just play hard, have a motor,” Boswell said. “I want all the coaches know I’m (putting it all) on the court.”

Boswell spoke with then new-UA coach Tommy Lloyd soon after and the relationship-building began — even as he generated even more attention by leading Team Why Not to the 16U Peach Jam title in July.

Now 6 feet 1 inch and 180 pounds, Boswell moved all the way up to the No. 13 ranked spot in the high school class of 2022 by 247Sports.com.

He was wanted all over.

In early August, Boswell visited UA unofficially and, after transferring to AZ Compass Prep last fall, made several unofficial visits to campus to watch the Red-Blue Game and regular-season games against Colorado and UCLA.

The Wildcats just had to make sure Boswell didn’t go home to Illinois.

The Illini were among his final three choices, along with UA and UNLV. But the more Boswell watched the Wildcats during what became a Pac-12 championship season, and the more he came to know coaches and players, the more he said he liked the program.

Once he got to know “basically the whole team,” including center Christian Koloko, guard Justin Kier and potential backcourt mate Kerr Kriisa, Boswell took his official visit to UA for the weekend of Feb. 18-20, sitting in for UA’s dramatic 84-81 win over Oregon.

He was sold.

Boswell set an announcement date of Feb. 28. That day, he went on the CBS HQ live stream, then revealed an Arizona Wildcats shirt and zero doubt about his choice.

“I really liked the atmosphere and really liked coach Tommy,” Boswell told the Star on Tuesday. “I feel like me and him have a good relationship on and off the court. All the coaches made me feel like family.”

The only thing left for Boswell to decide is when to start college.

Now a junior at AZ Compass Prep, Boswell has looking at the possibility of reclassifying to 2022 so he can play for the Wildcats next season.

Boswell said he plans to make the decision soon, so he will know whether to play for Team Why Not this spring and summer or finish up academically and get to Tucson as soon as possible.

Reclassifying might require a little stretch academically. But physically, probably not so much.

Not for “Bam-Bam,” anyway.