Meet Makyle Raaki '24

I’m from Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and even though RNS isn’t too far away, I’m still away from my family. That’s the hardest part about being away; not being able to see my family and my friends as well, but the guys down here have already taken me in, and I’ve made a good group of friends. I’ve found that when you’re doing something that you love, and when you have a great group of teammates like I do, it makes it a lot easier.

I’m super grateful to have the opportunity to play at RNS, especially because I haven’t been around the sport of basketball for very long. Up until the end of Grade 7, I was actually a hockey player, but after a while I found that I didn’t like playing as much as I used to, and to be honest there were a lot of racial tensions within the sport, so I felt like I needed a change. I had a lot of friends that would play pickup basketball, and I would go out and join them. I just really fell in love with the sport pretty quickly and saw myself being able to play at a high level if I put my mind to it. I started playing in Grade 9 and it was all upwards from there.

Just the fact that Coach Gay was willing to take me on the team meant a lot to me. Now I’m working so that his faith will pay off, and so that I’ll be able to become a great player. We’ve had a lot of great players at this school already, and I want to be one of the next ones. My approach is to become the best player I can be this year, and then next year establish myself as a leader on the team. I would love to be in a position in the future where I could help out the newer, younger guys and lead them in the right direction. That’s my mindset and that’s what I’m working towards every day.

The pandemic was really tough at first, but I just tried to make the best out of a bad situation. That season I ended up breaking my leg. Having an injury occur during the pandemic season was in some ways a good thing because if I had to be hurt, I’d rather be out when I wasn’t going to be playing anyway. I didn’t force my return to get back on the floor too soon because there were no games to get back into, which really allowed me to focus on rehab and getting my body right so I could come back and stay healthy.

A broad academic goal I have is to graduate high school achieving Honours with Distinction – a 90% average, or above. I’ve been able to keep it so far, so hopefully I’ll be able to keep my grades high. I’d like to pursue biology or chemistry in university, but it all depends on what happens throughout the rest of high school (my options will vary), but I like the sciences a lot so hopefully that’s what I’ll be able to go into.