Indigenous athlete promotes ‘hope and identity through sport’
By Mike Stimpson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Source: NWOnewswatch.com
Emily Mandamin has left university basketball, but she hasn’t left university or basketball.
Instead, the accomplished hoopster from Iskatewizaagegan #39 Independent First Nation is finishing her bachelor’s degree and spreading the gospel of basketball to Indigenous youth.
Mandamin told Newswatch in a recent interview that she left the University of Manitoba’s basketball program after two years in it “just due to some personal reasons and then trying to navigate my journey and everything.”
“I’m looking to graduate this semester with a degree in political science and then go to law school,” she said. “And so I took my LSATs and everything.
“So I’m really excited to finally graduate and then hopefully come back and help our communities and things like that.”
Community work and connection is a family tradition for Mandamin, whose father is chief of Iskatewizaagegan #39 (formerly Shoal Lake 39).
She has combined that tendency with her favourite sport by hitting the b-ball courts in places like Akulivik, Que., and Tonawanda, NY, and reaching out to youth in those places.
She said visiting Akulivik, an Inuit community in the northern third of Quebec called Nunavik, was a special experience.
“I think the biggest thing that I’ve been trying to, I guess, give the youth is a sense of hope and identity through sport,” the 5-foot-11 Anishinaabe athlete said.
“Basketball has been a passport for me to the rest of the world, especially coming from a super small community in Northwestern Ontario.
“I think basketball has let me connect with people all across Turtle Island, and it helped me find my voice and helped me recognize that even though a lot of our people come from many different nations and traditional practices, a lot of the times we’re facing the same barriers all across the table — whether that’s housing, funding, resources, things like that.
“A lot of the time sport can be medicine, if you will. And I think a lot of the youth have the same stories and are just starting to find their voice through sport.”
“And so I think my biggest message is, like, continue to use sport to find a place in this world and help you find joy in the little things and help build that sense of community and identity.
“Because at the end of the day, that’s what basketball has done for me. It’s given me family away from family and it’s given me home away from home.”
Mandamin, who played college basketball in the U.S. before joining the U of M, was featured on a Toronto transit bus and at a Raptors game in 2023 during the NBA team’s Indigenous Heritage Night.
She has ambitions to turn pro. To that end, she’ll be flying to Portugal in June for a showcase program that gives teams in Europe a chance to check out prospective recruits.
She said the transatlantic trip, though months away, “is looking pretty promising already.”
(File photo)
