By Connor Wilson
Most kids when they grow up want to be a professional athlete, having idols in their favorite sport that they want to model themselves after. In most cases, unfortunately, those dreams don’t turn to reality and those kids are forced to look elsewhere in their career paths.
Sometimes those career paths end up right back where they started: in sports. That’s the case with Dave Spahn.
Spahn helped start a scouting website when he was in high school in the Chicago area on which he would create scouting reports for local prospects and send them out to college coaches. From there is where he discovered his passion:
“I did that for a little over two years in high school,” Spahn said. “And I met a lot of people through that in the grassroots of the high school and college space.”
While he didn’t end up going the scout route with his career, he arguably settled on something more unique and impressive, that being an agent.
Spahn works for CAA , one of the biggest talent and sports agencies in the world. He’s worked there for the past nine years since he got out of school. Becoming an agent isn’t something that everyone considers, but Spahn likes the “behind the scenes” aspect of it.
“The agency route is interesting because most parts of sports are very public,” Spahn said. “It's very specific to professional athletes, it's a niche market, and very few people have an understanding of what's going on in this business, which makes it unique.”
In the NBA, Spahn’s number of clients is growing every year and includes some of the best young talent in the league. Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton was named to his first All-Star team this year. Jazz center Walker Kessler was a Rookie of the Year candidate this past season. Luke Kennard led the entire NBA in three point percentage. The list goes on and on.
“When you see that happen, that's what makes this job worth it,” Spahn said about his client’s success. “This is a very time intensive and labor intensive job and it’s a job that is all hands on deck at all times. When you’re working with great people and you start off the process coming out of college and see the process unfold, that's what it's all about.”
Still very early on in Spahn’s career, he has already received a lot of recognition for his work. In 2021, he was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 for Sports, the same list that included NFL star DeAndre Hopkins, senior lead NBA insider Shams Charania, and WNBA star A’ja Wilson.
According to the Forbes website, Spahn is described as “the youngest NBA certified player agent in CAA Sports' industry-leading basketball division, which represents 75 NBA players.
“At that age and stage of my career, I think that's right where you want to be,” Spahn said. “That award signifies that you’re ahead of the curve or you’re having a lot of success at a young age. For me it was important to get that validation for the amount of work that I'm doing.”
In today’s NBA Draft, Spahn will be representing two players - Michigan’s Jett Howard and Tennessee’s Julian Phillips. Those two will join the list of talented young players under contract with Spahn that will be taking over the league for years to come.
“There’s a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of times where you miss family time or time with friends,” Spahn said. “Stuff like that really validates it when you see the success your guys are having.”
With everything that he's already accomplished, this is only the beginning of the story of Dave Spahn.