Melvin Ejim is the heart and history of Team Canada
They call him “Uncle Mel.”
On paper, the 33-year-old Melvin Ejim — a 6-foot-8 small forward — probably isn’t one of Canada’s 12 best basketball players. He plays not in the NBA, but with Unicaja in Spain — an upper echelon European team.
But this week Ejim was named to the national squad heading to the Olympics for a reason: Uncle Mel is in some ways the heart and the history of the Canada’s national team.
Over many years, when Canada’s biggest stars sometimes showed up for international play, and sometimes didn’t, Ejim was always there.
“It’s been a dream of mine to represent Canada at the Olympics since I’ve started with the national team,” said Ejim who first played for Canada in 2015.
After Canada’s national men’s basketball team lost to Team USA 86-72 on Wednesday in Las Vegas, in the belly of T-Mobile Arena there were cameras and media aplenty, all there to see the Canadian stars: Jamal Murray, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and RJ Barrett.
In the background, Ejim made his way out of the arena with little fanfare. But Ejim has been the stalwart: devoting summer after summer to play for his country through many excruciating losses. Now his dream of playing in the Olympics is finally going to be fulfilled.
The first thing Ejim did after he was selected for this year’s team during their spell in Las Vegas was text his sister, Yvonne, who had already been selected for the Canadian women’s team earlier this month. Ejim and sister were part of a huge sporting family in Toronto where he grew up playing soccer and basketball with brothers Kenny, Ryan, and Deon.
Ejim said during camp he and his sister weren’t talking about making their respective teams.
“We didn’t want to jinx anything,” he said. “When she made the team, she sent me an emoji of the French flag and the (Sshh) emoji. When I made the team, I sent her the same thing and she was jumping around…and texting crazy messages.”
“I’m happy that we both get to experience and share this moment together.”
Ejim is the patriarch of the Canadian team, about which he has mixed feelings. But he’s had the same role, even with the same teammates, long before he was wearing the red and white. Ejim took Shai and RJ under his wing when they were boys, sometimes at the request of Barrett’s’ parents.
“They’d say to me: ‘look out for my son, make sure he’s doing what you need to do,’” he said.
Ejim remembers Gilgeous-Alexander coming to the Philippines to take part in practices with the team during their Olympic qualifying tournament in 2016.
“Shai was so young, impressionable,” said Ejim. “I was trying to show him how a pro acts and how to be, how to conduct [himself]. And now he’s in a great position. It’s great to see how he’s really developed.”
Gilgeous-Alexander and RJ Barrett routinely call him “Uncle Mel.”
“I don’t like being called ‘Uncle’ Mel because it makes me feel like I’m old, but I love the fact that they respect me,” said Ejim.
Ejim won Big-12 Player of the year at Iowa State but never made a career in the NBA. He had a cup of coffee with the Orlando Magic in 2014 before getting cut. But it was players like Ejim and brothers Tommy and Phil Scrubb (who also play in Europe) who pushed the program to make World Cups even without the NBA stars. They instilled a sense of pride and continuity in a team that was often assembled at the last minute and got picked apart by experienced teams such as Venezuela, France, Czechia. Canada had more talent than those teams, but never on the floor. And still the mainstays kept suiting up, building the program, and laying the foundations for when the NBA stars finally did suit up.
Ejim’s regards his commitment to the national team as paving the way for the likes of Shai and RJ among other to take the program to the next level. “It’s something bigger than me, right. I knew that we had something special with the national team,” said Ejim.
As he spoke to reporters, Gilgeous-Alexander walked up behind Ejim and gave him a brotherly chest bum and got an affectionate nudge in return. Gilgeous-Alexander may be the professional that Ejim wanted him to become, but he doesn’t hide who he is in front of the cameras.
Despite the near-missed Olympic, where Canada was game a game or two away from making the big dance, in 2015, 2016, 2021, Ejim showed up if it was the World Cup or a game in the Virgin Islands in World Cup qualifying.
“Being one game away, two times, three times, it was really tough,” said Ejim. “I didn’t give up. I just knew that it was going to be tough and when we had the opportunity: we have to jump at it. We couldn’t allow another opportunity to slip by us.”
Playing for your country is wonderful, but it comes with its fair share drawbacks too. Playing in 2019 FIBA World Cup, Ejim missed the birth of his second child. He watched on FaceTime.
He gives his wife Samantha credit for helping him commit to the national team. “She never faltered, she never made me feel bad about leaving her with three or four kids at a time to go represent the country. She always made it possible for me.”
When Canada finally reached the Olympics in Jakarta, Indonesia last summer in a game against Spain at the FIBA World Cup there was a huge release of emotions for Ejim. All the work from him, from Samantha, from the Scrubb brothers, from so many. It all made this moment happen.
“A sigh of relief. We finally did it,” said Ejim. “We’ve been so close so many times. We finally were able to do it with the guys that I’ve been with for the last 10 years.”
Ejim hopes to accomplish a feat that no Canadian team has done since 1936 — to win a medal at the Olympics: “Hopefully, at the end of that there’ll be some celebrating and I’ll be able to sit back and relax and enjoy the experience that we had and the group that we had.”
In Paris, it’s clear what Ejim and his teammates are chasing. Not even a Fairy Tale ending ever ends. Ejim accomplished what he always dreamed of. Now it’s time to suit up and make the next dream come true.
“Gold is what we’re looking for,” said Ejim.
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