Trey McKowen is a third-generation basketball savant

CEDAR RAPIDS - Jody McKowen remembers that one time.

It was over a decade ago. Her husband, Jon, had a laptop computer out on a table and was watching game tape of his basketball team.

Sitting next to him was their son, Trey. They were talking strategy.

Literally. Trey McKowen was 7 years old at the time.

“He would be sitting there, and Jon would say ‘Do you see that?’” Jody McKowen said. “Trey would say ‘Yeah. Why didn’t we do this or do that?’ That kid has always been a student of the game.”

Hey, he’s a McKowen. It’s in the genes.

Jon McKowen is about to begin his 12th season as head boys’ basketball at Cedar Rapids Kennedy. Trey McKowen is about to begin his third year as a varsity regular, coming off a 2023-24 season in which he was named a first-team all-state guard in Class 4A by the Iowa Professional Sportswriters Association.

He recently signed a national letter of intent to play college basketball at Division II Upper Iowa in Fayette. The head coach there is Brooks McKowen, Jon’s brother, who played D-I ball at Northern Iowa and is an IHSAA hall of famer.

Their sister, Brittney McKowen Kuhr, coached basketball until taking a principal’s job in Fremont, Neb. The patriarch of this hoops family is Marty McKowen, another hall of famer who is about to begin his 42nd season as head coach at Wapsie Valley High School.

“It’s a lot of our life,” Trey McKowen said. “Ninety percent of the weekends growing up, I was at a basketball tournament: either mine or my brother’s. Then every Tuesday and Friday, I was at my dad’s games watching. I mean, it’s like a nightly event all the time.”

Even Jody (Dean) McKowen has a basketball background. A softball hall of famer at UNI, she played hoops as well at Postville and coached Trey some as a youth.

“Basketball is the love language. Everyone can talk it, everyone knows it,” Jody said. “You sit down at the Thanksgiving table, and I guarantee you that they’ll be talking basketball. It’s just part of their normal discussion. Kind of like ‘How was work today?’ You eat it, breathe it, understand it. Luckily the kids just kind of morphed into that and adapted to it. It’s a passion. That’s coming from a wife’s perspective and a mom’s perspective and a daughter-in-law’s perspective.”

You watch Trey McKowen play, and you see a coach on the court.

He’s not the most vocal kid around, but he plays ferociously and is an obvious leader. He’s a point guard’s point guard, if you will, knows where everyone needs to be and where the basketball needs to be.

McKowen averaged a relatively modest but team-high 13.3 points per game last season, including 17 in last season’s 4A state championship game. He has played multiple roles in his Kennedy career: spot player off the bench, facilitator and scorer.

It appears he’ll need to do more of that latter thing this season, as the Cougars graduated their second through seventh-leading individual scorers.

  Buy Photo

“My sophomore year, I was more of a role player, a defensive guy a lot. Go in there, give good minutes for guys like Kenzie Reed and Colby Dolphin because they were our main scorers, our main offense,” Trey said. “Last year, my junior year, I was more of a point guard: distribute, hit open shots. This year, I’m going to have to create a lot more, make more shots and get everybody involved. Just kind of be an engine.”

Jon McKowen was asked if has thought much about this being his last season coaching his son. He and Jody have two younger boys, by the way, in Drew and Cade.

Drew McKowen is an eighth-grader who very well could be a varsity player next season as a freshman.

“We’ve tried to just enjoy every day,” Jon McKowen said. “It’s become real in that he has chosen a college. It’s become real because we’re applying to a school, getting all the paperwork in. He signed his commitment letter the other day. So, yeah, I think reality is hitting.

“But, man, I wouldn’t change it. It’s been a fun four years with him. Being able to just share everything from your school day, to what’s going on in your community, to basketball. Watching him grow from just being a cog in the wheel to a leadership role.”

Trey agrees that playing for his dad has been a positive experience.

“I’ve liked it. It’s been good,” he said. “He holds me accountable like everybody else. It’s not like I get special treatment or anything. It’s nice to have someone you can talk to at home.”

So there have never been any big blowups between them? There’s a legendary story out there that Jon and Marty had one during a Wapsie game back in the day that Marti McKowen had to put an end to, making her son and husband promise from that day forward that basketball would never be discussed at home unless Jon wanted it to be.

“Maybe a couple,” Trey said with a smile. “But I’ll keep those secret for the day.”

“Being a former athlete, your competitive nature never leaves you, right?” Jody McKowen said. “I would tell you this has been a maturing moment for me to be a mom. Because I knew Trey was getting it from Jon, and he’d get home and I’d want to tell him the 10 things that he could have done better, too. So from my seat in the ballpark, just seeing him be able to grow up in this environment and appreciate the game that everyone else (in the family) loves has been kind of rewarding, I think. And a blessing just because he truly loves it.”

Trey said it never was a forgone conclusion that he would go to Upper Iowa, even though he always has had a close relationship with his uncle. Brooks McKowen would babysit him every now and then when he was in college and Jon and Jody were living in Cedar Falls, where Jon was head coach at the former Northern University High.

“It was always an option, but I wouldn’t say it was my goal all the time to go to Upper Iowa,” Trey said. “Obviously I wanted to play at the Division I level, but playing at Upper Iowa is going to be awesome. I’m super excited for it. (He and Brooks) talk a lot. I ask him how practice goes sometimes and things. I’m excited for if I don’t want to cook, I can just go over to his house.”

“I hope I don’t have to referee,” Marty McKowen said with a laugh. “I had to referee those two (Jon and Brooks) when they were growing up. Trey had other schools that were after him, but distance was going to be a huge issue. It really was. Being in Fayette, for his family to be able to get there and see games ... With their league, games are on Thursday and Saturday. With high school (games on Friday), that fits perfectly. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

McKowen and basketball. They just always belong in the same sentence.

  Buy Photo

Comments: (319)-398-8258, jeff.johnson@thegazette.com