top of page
Former Raptor Pascal Siakam awarded honorary degree from UNB for education work
More than 30 middle school-aged kids sat on wooden benches inside a gym in Gagetown, a tiny New Brunswick village about 60 kilometres away from the capital city of Fredericton.
They gathered to present their work analyzing basketball statistics and learning about the world of data science in the process.
What they didn't know is that NBA star Pascal Siakam would be joining them in the gym, sporting an "Education is Freedom" t-shirt and ready to listen to what they'd learned about how to use open data.
"It's turned into one of the best days of my life," 11-year-old Acacia Mallery, a big Toronto Raptors fan, said about her second day of Grade 6.
The students were part of the Indiana Pacers forward's Data Dunkers program, a partnership between his PS43 Foundation and Dell Technologies that sees Grade 5 to 12 students learn about data analysis through basketball.
His appearance — a real-life pro basketball player, and part of one of Canada's great sporting moments with the 2019 championship Toronto Raptors team — left many of the kids star-struck.
'The biggest inspiration of my life'
Growing up, Siakam's father, Tchamo Siakam, always stressed the importance of education. Basketball won't last forever, but no one can take away your education, he told him. It became the most important thing to his son.
His father passed away in 2014 when his son was at college in the United States, far away from his family.
When the students in Gagetown asked Siakam on Wednesday about his biggest challenge, he talked about losing his father.
"The biggest inspiration of my life passed away," Siakam told the kids. "It was super hard. I just had to find a different purpose. It changed my life and my career for the better just because from that day on, I was playing for my dad. I had a purpose. I was doing everything that I could to make him proud."
Two years later, Siakam was selected by the Toronto Raptors in the first round of the NBA draft.
That city, and Canada, shaped him, too. It's where he won a championship with the Raptors in 2019, a moment he described as the proudest of his career so far, knowing what the title meant to the whole country.
Raptors fans surprised Siakam for his return to Toronto:
Beyond basketball, Canada is where he grew up.
Staying connected to Canada
Even though his career has taken him to Indiana, Siakam wanted to make sure he kept roots and connections to Canada through his foundation.
Much of that work had been in Toronto. Siakam had never been to New Brunswick.
And then he met former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna.
Siakam's foundation had been looking to expand and contribute beyond Toronto. McKenna told Siakam about his home province, and over lunch, a connection was made.
"When I heard there was a huge community of Cameroonians here, I just felt like, man, this is kind of perfect, having the opportunity to give back to my community, but also to Canada," Siakam said.
The River Philip Foundation and the McKenna Institute, along with Siakam's PS43 Foundation, established a $200,000 tech-focused scholarship to UNB for students from Cameroon. So far, the money has helped Cameroonian students come to New Brunswick to study chemical engineering and computer science.
"I took my driver's license here," Siakam said. "It feels like home"
It's where he created his PS43 Foundation, named not just for his jersey number, but also for the four men and three women in his family. The goal was to honour his father by providing young people access to education, the value that was so important to him.
The player known as "Spicy P" was traded to the Indiana Pacers in 2024. He led the Pacers to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2024, followed by a trip to the NBA Finals this past season.
Siakam was named the Eastern Conference Finals MVP after a regular-season all star nod, before losing the championship to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's Oklahoma City Thunder.
bottom of page