Steve Nash may be one of Canada’s greatest sports exports, and has earned the prestigious Order of Canada and Order of British Columbia honors for his athletic and charitable endeavors. He’s also a Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, and spent more than two decades as a player or executive for the Canadian National Team.
But it wasn’t until Sunday that he earned his first win as an NBA head coach in Canada, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the Toronto Raptors to play their home games during the 2020-21 season in Florida.
Alas, Nash’s Nets topped the Raptors 116-103 at the Scotiabank Arena on Sunday night, giving him his 55th regular-season win as a head coach, and perhaps the most meaningful of his short career.
“It means a lot,” Nash said after the game. “This is a very special place for me. Not only Canada, but Toronto. I’ve spent so much of my time here, I have so many close friends, relationships, and memories in this city. I have a lot of admiration for the Raptors organization, and Nick Nurse.
This is a tough team here with great fans. For me, this is definitely a sweet win. It’s special to me.”
Nash lived in Saskatchewan briefly after moving from South Africa as a small child, but his family settled in British Columbia, where he won a provincial championship his senior year. He is the part-owner of the Vancouver Whitecaps FC of MLS – the team his brother, Martin, once played for – and runs a youth basketball league in his native B.C. as well, and is the godfather of budding Canadian star and current Knicks forward RJ Barrett, whose father, Rowan Sr., was one of Nash’s teammates on the Canadian National Team.
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He also got the ultimate honor in 2010: he got to light the Olympic cauldron when the Winter Olympics were held in Vancouver, about 75 miles northeast of his childhood home in Victoria.
And now, he’s 1-0 as a coach in his homeland.
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