When Adeena Razzaq showed up at the Jarvis Collegiate Institute basketball court in Toronto this week, she arrived wearing her brother’s clothes.
“Ever since I was a kid I’ve been wearing his clothes,” the 18-year-old told CBC Toronto. “He got mad at me a few times, but he got used to it.”
It’s one of the many ways she’ll hold onto memories of her older brother Affan, who died earlier this month from cancer at age 20.
Then there’s his sport — the game that drew him in from the time he was six or seven years old, and which he was on the road to pursuing professionally.
“Whenever I see basketball, I just see him,” said Razzaq.
Standing at six feet eight inches, Scarborough’s Affan Razzaq had accepted a scholarship to play basketball at Northern Oklahoma College and hoped to take his place in the NBA draft one day.
Last December, he was diagnosed with brain cancer, but continued to train even as he underwent aggressive treatment for the disease. He last stepped onto a court at Jarvis C.I. in July, just weeks before he died.
A ‘really humble’ teammate
Omar Nicholls, one of Affan’s coaches, says the young man’s height and skills helped rack up wins at many tournaments and championships over the years, but that it was his abilities as a teammate that stood out.
“A really humble kid, really nice, never argued with anybody, never cursed,” said Nicholls. “He’s just an amazing kid to be around.”
Nicholls, who co-founded a program called NuStep Basketball with his partner Elisha Romain in 2013, helped train Affan for the last six years, watching as he strove to reach the level of his basketball heroes like Kevin Durant.
The couple were the first to be told about the cancer diagnosis outside the Razzaq family.
“To know that we meant that much to him was a lot,” said Romain, who said she dove headfirst into researching Affan’s disease and trying to find ways to help him feel grounded and supported.
Like his family, Nicholls describes Affan as a fighter.
“In the hospital, he kept on talking about, you know, hopefully he can get out of here soon, get discharged,” he said. “Right to the very end. He said, ‘I’m going to get out of here.'”
An outpouring of grief
Affan’s funeral, held on Monday in Pickering, Ont., brought out scores of former teammates and friends, says longtime family friend Ibrahim Daniyal.
“The mosque management was amazed to see how many Canadian youth came to say goodbye to him. It was not one community. It was Canadians of all creeds, faiths, ethnicities,” Daniyalsaid.
That support is a source of some comfort for the Razzaq family, including Affan’s parents.
“His mother is just praying for him. That’s what she’s doing all the time,” said Daniyal.
Affan’s younger brother, 14-year-old Ayaan Razzaq, said he’s lost both a protector and a role model.
“He was kind of the person who just wanted to look out for me, and … really just wanted the best for me,” he said.
Outside of his grieving family and friends, some of who Affan Razzaq was lives on online, where he filled out a LinkedIn profile last year, complete with a photo of himself mid-dunk.
“Kobe Bryant once said ‘The moment you give up, is the moment you let someone else win.’ I live by this quote everyday,” wrote Affan. “My dream is to make it to the NBA, and I wont give up until I make it.”
