Basketball | 2023

‘Godfather’ of Eskasoni basketball continues to make impact on community

By: Maria Collins and Gabrielle Hill-Desjardins

It was the summer of 1999 when 15-year-old John Denny Sylliboy started playing basketball with his friends in Eskasoni, Unama'ki (Cape Breton), the largest Mi’kmaw community in the world.

For Sylliboy, it was more than a game. He says he was determined to succeed early on.

“I remember watching March Madness basketball during that time and I said, ‘Jeez, I don’t see any Indigenous athletes. I’m going to be the first Mi’kmaw to play college basketball,’” Sylliboy says. “And that’s what started everything.”

At 19, Sylliboy became the first Mi’kmaw to play at a university level on Cape Breton University’s team, the Capers, from 2003 to 2007.

John Denny Sylliboy playing for the Cape Breton University Capers in 2005. (Photo contributed)

Since then, Sylliboy has influenced hundreds of young basketball players and says his story illustrates the importance of sport in community.

Sylliboy found inspiration close to home. His father was the first Mi’kmaw black belt in Taekwondo.

“I was like ‘I want to be like my dad,’” he says. “For him to have a high degree of black belt, he has earned respect. I always wanted that too.”

And the inspiration didn’t stop there. Rita Joe, the famous Mi’kmaw poet best known for her poem I Lost My Talk, was Sylliboy’s grandmother.

“She would tell me, you know, ‘I love poetry but you love sports, and you have to remember to do it for your people.”

John Denny Sylliboy shares how basketball has impacted his life and why he wants to pass it along to the next generation.

The 39-year-old father of three recognizes the positive impact sport can have on young people. He credits basketball for keeping him on the right track as a teenager. Today, Sylliboy is a social worker with Mi’kmaw Family & Children Services and plays in a drumming group.

“If I wasn’t playing basketball, I think I would’ve been either on drugs, alcohol, jobless, still on welfare,” he says. “Basketball has really changed who I am.”

When he was done playing, Sylliboy moved on to coaching. He coached for over 15 years until his son was born in 2019.

Sylliboy coached Mi’kmaw athlete Hugh Paul, who says Sylliboy’s love for his community is seen in his dedication to the sport.

“He wants to see the next generation, and then the next generation move on, become better than where we were yesterday,” says Paul.

Paul says Sylliboy taught him how to discover his potential, both in basketball and in life.

“For him to teach us all the things he’s taught us throughout our years, we still use that today, we still apply that to everything,” says Paul. “I’m a coach because of him.”

Paul is the assistant coach for the U16 Nova Scotia basketball team for the North American Indigenous Games (NAIG), which will be held in Nova Scotia in July.

From left: Tecumseh (Acha) Battiste, J.D Sylliboy, John Denny Sylliboy, Hugh Paul. (Photo Credit: Erin Moore)

Sylliboy says he is thrilled to see the games coming to Mi’kma’ki for the first time.

This year, Sylliboy will perform with his drumming group but in 2002, he attended NAIG as an athlete.

He was also the assistant coach for the U19 Nova Scotia team in 2006 and the head coach for the same age group in 2014 and 2017.

Sylliboy says his time at NAIG is one of his fondest memories and greatest accomplishments.

“Knowing that I’m part of something where there’s all athletes and they’re all Indigenous and they’re playing at a high level, it was a great thing,” he says. “It was a great feeling to be part of [NAIG].”

John Denny Sylliboy coaching Team Nova Scotia at NAIG 2014. (Photo Contributed)

After years of hard work, Sylliboy has helped keep his sport alive in Eskasoni and is glad to see it thriving. He stays up to date with former athletes and takes pride in knowing they’re doing well in life.

While he’s stepped back from coaching for now, Sylliboy says he may pick it up again in a few years.

“If my son, who’s four years old now, tells me ‘Dad, we need a coach,’ I’m putting that whistle back on,” he says. “But it’s just right now, the full attention is just my family and I have no regrets.”

Sylliboy says he’s glad he got to play and coach at a high level and says the sport has “blessed” him.

“This ball here has done so much for me. It has given me the opportunity to meet new people, learn new things, travel the world. And it was all because of this,” he says, holding up a basketball.

“To this day now people look up to me like I’m the basketball godfather.”