For Syla Swords, it’s all about family
Most 18-year-olds are getting ready for prom and preparing to go to college or university. But not Syla Swords. She is about to become the youngest ever Canadian basketball player to go to the Olympics.
“The Olympics was always the goal for me even before I chose basketball,” said Swords in an interview with Raptors Republic. “It’s really exciting, just being with the senior team so long. It’s really cool to finally be an Olympian.”
Finally?
Swords’ Olympic journey has come quickly. She made her first senior team in the fall of 2022. She was on the roster that won Bronze at FIBA AmeriCup in 2023, but she’s long led junior programs at the U19 and U17 levels. Still, the senior team is a new beast entirely: “At the start when I first came here, I was like, ‘what am I doing here?’”
She heard some of her teammates talking about taxes, which made her laugh in disbelief. She inhabits a different world — off the court. But as with basketball, she’s keen on learning. She loves to pick the brain of Canadian centre, Kayla Alexander, who is a business owner.
“I am 10 years younger than some of them, who are buying houses, and I learned to embrace it. These are my role models that I’ve watched on TV, and now I’m in the same room with them. There’s just so much knowledge in this team that I just love to be around and love to soak it all in.”
Swords is a sharp-shooting shooting guard as a five-star recruit who is headed to Michigan University in the fall. She has been a standout for Canada at youth levels before joining the Canadian national team in the past year.
She is not the first member of the Swords family who has gone to the Olympics. Her father Shawn was on the 2000 Olympic men’s team and is now an associate head coach with the Brooklyn Nets G-League team, the Long Island Nets.
Syla’s mother, Shelley, played for Laurentian University and is a high school coach, while Syla’s sister Savannah has been outstanding for Canada at the U-17 World Cup this month, dropping 25 points against France.
The Swords are a basketball family. But Syla believes her love of the game came from within.
“There wasn’t a pressure for me to play or be good at it. If [my parents] were telling me to get in the gym, I think I would have been pretty contrarian. But even today, my dad won’t take me and my sister to work out unless we ask him.”
Syla and Savannah grew up in Sudbury, battling it out with each other and their parents on the basketball courts. Their father would open up the Laurentian gym where he coached to let his daughters work on their games from the age of five.
To this day the sisters have shooting competitions with each other — and their dad. Syla admits that her father still beats her and her sister in one-on-one because he plays “bully ball.”
For her birthday Swords got a Steph Curry Masterclass program as a present from her parents. The style fits hers, with constant motion and cutting complementing the lightning-quick release on her jumper.
Nowadays, Syla and Savannah are ultimate partners in crime on the basketball court.
“She’s my training partner. She’s my best friend,” said Swords. “I always say we’re each other’s biggest supporters and each other’s biggest competitors. So to just have someone living with me that wants to do the same things that I want to do at a high level is a great motivator and it just makes day to day training more fun.”
Syla hopes one day to share an Olympic court with Savannah.
“Since we were little, since our dad played, we were like, ‘Hey, we’re going to be next — the Swords sisters.’ It’s always been on our mind,” said Syla.
One teammate on the national team Swords was nervous about meeting was Kia Nurse, to whom she looked up as a kid.
“Kia was definitely like one of my biggest role models,” said Swords. “The first time I actually met her was at the November training camp two years ago. It was really cool. She’s such a genuine person. She’s everything I thought she would be, so nice, so supportive and a great basketball player, so it was really cool to meet someone that great.”
Nurse broke onto the stage at the 2016 Olympics as a 20-year-old. Similarly, Swords has a maturity on the court that is well beyond her years. She describes herself as “easy going — I don’t go too crazy with emotions.”
“I take a step back and think about how early I’m doing this and the players I am playing with,” said Swords. “I wouldn’t be able to do it if I wasn’t as mentally strong and tough as I am. And that’s a credit to the coaches I’ve had and keeping me grounded, keeping me humble.”
Still, she understands it is something to wear the Swords name on an Olympic jersey 24 years after her dad did the same.
“I feel like it’s not going to hit me that I’m an Olympian until that moment when I first step foot onto the court,” said Swords.
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