Hoop Dreams: Carleton Grad Making the World a Better Place Through Basketball
Lead image by EyeEm Mobile GmbH / iStock
By Dan Rubinstein
If you go to a Carleton Ravens basketball game, you’ll probably spot Leo Doyle in his usual seat, five rows up near centre court.
The Carleton University alumnus has season tickets to cheer on the women’s and men’s teams, but the real action occurs at halftime and between games, when he mingles with the crowd at the Ravens’ Nest, animatedly chatting with members of Ottawa’s large and diverse basketball community.
Doyle, a retired federal government public servant with a master’s degree in Canadian Studies from Carleton, is the founder of the Ottawa Basketball Network (OBN), a non-profit dedicated to growing and providing equitable access to the sport. The OBN advocates for enhanced support for basketball facilities and programming so that youth can enjoy and gain valuable life skills through a game that requires little more than a ball and a hoop to play.
“It’s such a joyful activity and a path to social development, especially for young people from racialized and low-income communities,” says Doyle.
“There’s so much investment in hockey in Canada but comparatively little for basketball. I’m trying to help get a conversation going.
“My parents modelled this type of behaviour,” he adds. “When you’re my age, your role is to create for the next generation. And I can’t think of many things that can connect people to one another more than basketball.”
Ottawa’s Contribution to Basketball History
As you might expect, Doyle loves basketball. He played while growing up in North Sydney, N.S., and continues to play pickup ball in Ottawa gyms and outdoor courts. He has also coached and organized clubs, clinics, tournaments and charity games for hoopers ranging from his son and other neighbourhood kids to high-calibre international athletes and Masters Indigenous Games participants.
Doyle also loves history and applies much of his energy toward shining a spotlight on Ottawa’s and Carleton’s contribution to the evolution of basketball in Canada.
Not only was the sport’s founder, James Naismith, from Almonte, just southwest of the city, but the first basketball game in Canada was played at the YMCA in downtown Ottawa in 1892. The Ottawa YMCA was also the site of the fateful meeting in 1941 that led to the creation of Carleton College, the forerunner of today’s Carleton University.
Those YMCA connections helped Carleton recruit Norm Fenn, the university’s first full-time Director of Athletics, from Springfield College in Massachusetts — where Naismith created the game — in 1951.
“Norm Fenn is the foundation of Carleton’s basketball success,” says Doyle, “and excellence in basketball is now part of Carleton’s brand.”
UN World Basketball Day
Doyle’s outlook extends far beyond the city. He had a hand in the United Nations proclaiming December 21 as World Basketball Day, personally passing a draft resolution to Bob Rae, Canada’s ambassador to the UN, during an event at the Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre.
“Basketball impacts global spheres of commerce, peace and diplomacy,” declares the UN, which adopted the resolution in 2023, “and creates a unique space of cooperation, physical movement and an interdependence that allows participants to see each other as human beings first and foremost.”
Doyle is also friends with New York University sports business professor David Hollander, who first proposed the idea for a World Basketball Day. Hollander teaches a course and wrote a book called “How Basketball Can Save the World” that explores how the values rooted in the game can help address some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
Because basketball is “positionless,” Hollander writes, it teaches people how to adapt to challenges. It also cultivates “team alchemy” — a group of individuals greater than the sum of its parts — and can provide a space to feel safe, free and expressive that encourages players to be their happiest and most productive selves off the court.
Carleton’s Culture of Excellence
Doyle chose Carleton for a master’s degree because of his interest in history and politics. He learned how to do archival research and see the present more clearly by deepening his understanding of the past.
“Let’s stop looking at history as a story about heroes and villains,” he says, paraphrasing the writer Yuval Noah Harari, “and let’s examine the context in which change works itself out.”
Doyle kept coming back to campus after graduating to watch the university’s basketball program evolve into a juggernaut, with the men’s team winning 17 of 20 national championships between 2003 and 2023 and the women’s team winning national titles in 2018 and 2023.
This culture of excellence, and a desire to have a positive impact in the community, underpin his volunteer work.
“The world has always been complicated, and sports can bring you into a relationship with people that’s focused on your shared objectives,” he says. “I’m trying to get decision-makers in government and the private sector to see that basketball offers an efficient way to engage people and build community. To help connect and uplift people and overcome stigma and prejudice. We’ve never needed that more.”
Related Stories
6 min read
Carleton University's Top 10 Stories of 2025
As the 2025 season comes to a close, we reflect on the groundbreaking research, innovative leadership and inspiring community achievements that defined 2025 for Carleton…
5 min read
Destination Dreaming: Carleton Grad Turns Love of Travel into Career
A seasoned public relations professional specializing in tourism and hospitality, Mandy Sinclair knows how to tell her clients’ stories — tapping into audiences’ emotions and…
4 min read
Carleton Anchors International Collaboration Through South Africa-Canada Universities Network
Building on more than three decades of Canada-South Africa academic collaboration, Carleton University is helping formalize a new era of partnership — one that brings…