When Sabry Philip stepped onto the Edmonton Expo Centre court in a Stingers’ jersey for the season opener on Mother’s Day, it was fitting on so many levels. After an eight-year journey, from TRC Academy in Ontario to New York’s Stony Brook Seawolves in the NCAA’s elite Division 1, the 24-year- old Edmonton-born talent came home to play for the city’s Canadian Elite Basketball League team.
For the first time in years, Philip sang “O Canada” before tip-off. “To this day, it brings chills down my spine just thinking about it,” he recalls. “It’s been quite a journey. A lot of ups and downs.”
The 6’4” guard had to overcome four surgeries during his college basketball career. His final year was particularly challenging — battling injuries while competing at the top level of collegiate sports and juggling the start of an MBA program. During those low points, Philip says he was motivated by the sacrifices of his parents, who fled war-torn South Sudan in 2000, especially his mother, who raised him as a single parent. In fact, it was his mother who first introduced him to basketball, setting up a hoop in the basement as an alternative to the Bugs Bunny cartoons he devoured as a child. “I didn’t want to have anything to do with it,” Philip says with a laugh. But after watching Space Jam — which starred legend Michael Jordan and his beloved Bugs Bunny — he was hooked. “I loved the way [Jordan] was able to fly in the sky. He just seemed almost like a superhero.”
It wasn’t until after he went off to the University of San Diego on a basketball scholarship that the Stingers played their inaugural game with the newly established Canadian Elite Basketball League in 2019, soon becoming league champions in 2020 and 2021. That was in part thanks to its all-star hometown hero Jordan Baker, who also happened to coach Philip at Harry Ainlay High School.
Philip is only the second Edmontonian to suit up for the team since Baker retired in 2022. (The first, Aher Uguak, now plays in Germany.) Though Philip says he feels no pressure to be the new hometown hero, he knows firsthand how a local success story can inspire. He remembers going to University of Alberta Golden Bears’ games and lining up for an autograph from Baker. And it was Baker, now the Stingers’ head coach and general manager, who recruited Philip as a guard.
“He was always a great person with a contagious smile that players and people gravitated towards,” says Baker, recalling his high school talents. A natural and gifted athlete, he says success on the court, back then, came easily for Philip.
The team also recently signed another homegrown talent, Fareed Shittu, fresh off his college career, hoping the 6’6” forward will help bring home another championship title this fall. Now that Philip and Shittu are finally home, they’re excited to inspire another generation of athletes to follow in their sneakersteps.
This article appears in the July/August 2025 issue of Edify
