Canada's Laeticia Amihere is learning how to effect change, on and off the court 

Laeticia Amihere became famous at 15 for being the first Canadian woman to dunk in a game. The 6-foot-4 forward from Mississauga, Ont., won the NCAA championship with the South Carolina Gamecocks in 2022 before being drafted No. 8 overall by the Atlanta Dream in 2023, having represented Canada at the senior level since 2017.

But when all is said and done, the 22-year-old wants her legacy to be as much about what she did off the court than what she did on it. 

“My family is super into [giving back]. Just in the roots of who we are,” Amihere told Sportsnet.ca. “I think it's important to know that when you're growing up and you have a whole community behind you, that it's great to get out of that community and do wonderful things, but also look back and pour it back into them to create a bigger cycle.”

Still, Amihere also knows that on-court success begets off-court opportunities. And with the final Olympic qualifying tournament underway in Sopron, Hungary — where the Canadians are off to a 1-1 start, beating host Hungary before falling to Spain — Amihere has an opportunity to help head coach Victor Lapena’s squad qualify for a record fourth-straight Olympic Games with a win on Sunday versus Japan. As one of the most versatile players on the team, with a 6-foot-10 wingspan and elite footwork and touch, Amihere is asked to attack mismatches and defend multiple positions while acting as a bridge between the younger core and the veterans. 

“I definitely consider myself a [bridge] on the team just because of my years of experience on the senior national team,” Amihere said. “And, hopefully, the younger people, they can look up to me in that sort of sense because I've been in their position — I've been a young person on an older team.”

“I'm sure, in this tournament, she will show us good things,” Lapena said. “Because in the last days in Vienna, working in Vienna in our [training] camp, she was pretty good. She was pretty good. And much better than she was in Colombia [in the pre-Olympic qualifying tournament] in November. So, I feel good with Laeticia for this tournament.”

Amihere is off to a good start. Through two games, she is averaging seven points and three rebounds on 62.5 per cent shooting, changing the game with her energy and athleticism each time she comes off the bench.

But it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Amihere. After bouncing back from multiple knee injuries in high school to be considered the future of Canadian hoops, she has faced more adversity in recent years, dealing with personal tragedies and the increased responsibilities that come with being a pro and juggling multiple jobs at once.

In early 2022, she underwent scope procedures on both knees, which left her unable to train or walk during the summer. Then, in late August, Amihere’s oldest brother, Kofi — one of the main reasons she started playing basketball in the first place — died at the age of 30. She missed training camp for the FIBA World Cup before ultimately going on to join Canada for the tournament. 

Later that year, Amihere’s aunt, Olga Lambert, passed away from breast cancer. After being diagnosed in 2008, Lambert became one of Amihere’s biggest motivations growing up as she took her to basketball practices in between chemotherapy treatments and was there for every step of her basketball journey. 

“This year has been extremely tough for me,” Amihere told Andscape in 2023. “I feel like it was a moment where I was just on the go all the time and I wasn’t really able to just sit down and take in everything that’s been going on.”

After an up-and-down rookie season with the Dream, Amihere joined Canada for the pre-Olympic qualifying tournament in Colombia in November, averaging just 9.7 points on 41.7 per cent shooting — significantly lower than the 48.7 per cent she shot in her senior season at South Carolina. Still, she was instrumental to Canada’s 3-0 run as a defensive anchor, playing the most minutes on the team.

“Now that you've kind of had a year under your belt, you're kind of just keeping up on how people move, how people conduct themselves as professionals,” Amihere said about what she learned in her first year as a pro. “So, I would just say the management part of it, obviously coming from a university standpoint, where everything is structured to the professionals, where it's kind of at your own pace, in a sense — just picking up what it really takes to be a professional in that aspect.”

While it feels like Amihere has been a prominent figure in Canadian basketball forever, she is still only 22. And there is still a lot of untapped potential for her, both on and off the court. 

One of the ways Amihere has managed to stay level-headed during the past couple of years is through her philanthropic work. Inspired by her family’s ideals and Masai Ujiri’s Giants of Africa foundation, Amihere created her own non-profit, Back to the Motherland, in June 2022 to provide opportunities for under-served communities through basketball. The foundation started with a basketball camp in Orangeville, Ont., and has since expanded to the Ivory Coast last summer and Ghana this winter, where she hosted a basketball tournament.

“It's really just all about giving opportunities to those who probably wouldn't have them and just for them to feel a sense of belonging,” Amihere said. “A lot of them may want to make it to the league. And a lot of them, they just want to have an outlet. So, [it’s about] providing that for them.”

As the first person of Ghanaian descent to be drafted into the WNBA, it was important to Amihere to show that she cared about her community and the people who helped her get to this position. “So, my whole mission towards that is just to empower those that don't get those opportunities,” she said.

But she is also giving back to communities here in Canada at a time when more opportunities for youth in sport are desperately needed. A recent study by the MLSE Foundation found that this year saw a 17 per cent decrease in youth sport access in Ontario from the previous year, with social isolation and affordability deemed as the greatest barriers to participation. It also found that 38.5 per cent of six- to 10-year-olds reported racism or discrimination in sport, up significantly from a year before. 

Overall, 36 per cent of Ontario youth reported not having access to safe places to play sports in 2023. And of youth not active in sport, 56 per cent are girls.

Amihere herself had obstacles finding elite sport development pathways growing up in Mississauga. She had to travel to Toronto after school to do weight training, then drive to Scarborough to do basketball training before returning home every night. Plus, the only way she was able to play for a travel team, the Mississauga Monarchs, was after her coach Kenny Manning paid the fees because her family didn’t have the means. 

“I was also one of those kids that didn't get those opportunities growing up and my family probably didn't have the financial capabilities that other parents had to put me in those positions,” Amihere said. “So, it’s like a debt — I always say it's a debt to basketball and a debt to the people that poured into me as well.”

Another person who inspired Amihere was Toronto Raptors president and vice chairman Ujiri, who created his non-profit, Giants of Africa, in 2003. “That's one of the biggest reasons also why I started my nonprofit, I think, just watching what they did,” Amihere said.

“So, I've definitely leaned on to him and his staff,” Amihere said. “I've been to a lot of their events and I've been invited to a lot of their events, kind of just to watch and take out all the good stuff and also learn from their mistakes, because when you're working in a foreign country or working abroad, there's a lot more hurdles to battle than working in North America.”

In addition to the personal relationship she has with Ujiri, Amihere could benefit from a new partnership between Canada Basketball and the MLSE Foundation that aims to support Canadian Senior Women’s National Team athletes in their off-court endeavors, providing financial support to aid initiatives including camps, clinics, and events to help grow the game for women in Canada.

This philanthropic work has become a source of happiness for Amihere, who understands even at her age that there is more to life than just basketball. And while she is using her platform as a WNBA and Team Canada athlete to give back to the communities that helped raise her, those communities continue to give back to her in unexpected ways. 

“My first camp was actually in Orangeville. And the camp was really towards people that are marginalized,” Amihere said about the free camp she hosted in 2022. “So, that was kind of my way to paying it back forward. And a lot of those girls ... that don't have as many opportunities were able to come out to my basketball camp and talk about a bunch of stuff, like self-esteem and just giving them opportunities.

“It was definitely something that I lacked when I was younger. So, kind of seeing them come out and enjoy that experience was something that was very beneficial to me.”