“It kind of brings you together,” said Gorjok Gak, who is also 6-foot-11, like his brother Deng. “You have something to do, always. We practiced every day and after practice we’d play until like 9 and then go eat and then go home. And then same thing the next day.”

“The relationship with Mayor is really superstrong,” he added. “I look at him, like, as another father for me.”

The challenge for the Pride now is how to preserve that fatherly mission while managing international interest and all the pressures that come with it.

Other coaches and teams in Australia already treat the Pride as a feeder, recruiting the best players, sometimes pushing them to prioritize tournaments that conflict with school or Pride training. Mr. Chagai has a hard time keeping up with all the calls and emails from coaches all over the world, and in previous years some players, who were seized upon by dubious American scouts, ended up at schools that were little more than athlete factories. About a dozen of the players have come back to Australia after dropping out of high school or college programs.

With Henry Makeny in particular, Mr. Chagai, a volunteer trying to manage a program for nearly 200 boys, is working hard to find a better way. He’s known the Makeny family since they all lived together in a Kenyan refugee camp. Henry has offers from five American high schools, and a couple of weeks ago a college coach showed up for practice here and quickly made him an offer.