ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½

So, off it was to the team’s offices, where there was this quick-talking, quite charming, obviously passionate guy whose tiny office overlooking the train tracks at Union Station was dominated by a picture of Nelson Mandela.

After that half-hour chat, spent mostly talking about the world, was the moment I got a feeling that this Masai Ujiri guy isn’t your run-of-the-mill basketball scout. He’s going to be something, somewhere, somehow.

Fast forward almost two decades, broken up by a hiatus in Denver, and one personal feeling is that Ujiri enriched us with far more than his impressive basketball talents.

What I got to know about Ujiri more than anything in all those years was his singular belief in the words of Mandela and how they resonate: “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination.”

To me, Ujiri leaves ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ with a sports legacy that should be the envy of any executive. It hasn’t been the greatest of times these last two years, but that’s far too short-sighted a viewpoint.

The Raptors won. They won big, they won often, and under Ujiri’s leadership they became one of the very best franchises in the NBA. The stumbles of two seasons? Yeah, they’re real and they have to be corrected, but I think the franchise is poised to do that. And besides, in the totality of his reign the Raptors never cheated the fans. Did they hit 100 per cent? No one ever does. And Ujiri never did. He told me that often.

But I cannot shake what Ujiri meant in the greater picture and how important it was. For the Raptors. For ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½. For Canada. He fought every important fight with passion and intent and vigour, and there has never been a more encompassing sports executive who ever lived in this country.

From the very day I met him, he advanced the causes of women, of Indigenous people, of those less fortunate. He cared about big things and, I hope, he got some of us to care about them, too.

I saw him with young kids — boys and girls from every society strata — and the way he got to them was tangible. He insisted that they could be great, that they mattered, that chances would be made available to them or he’d die trying.

What he did was awaken an awful lot of people to a lot of important issues, and his undying passion had to be contagious.

One of the very best perks of this job — the one thing everyone wants to talk about — is the games you get to see, the events you get to attend, the places you’re lucky enough to have visited.

And that’s all true — it’s been an amazing ride and it’s still going — but I always counter with this: Long after those games are forgotten and the sights fade from memory, what you remember are the men and women you’ve been fortunate to know, to learn from, to count among friends.

Yes, there were basketball things that Ujiri did and I didn’t agree with. There were moves he made that didn’t work out, and that’s par for the course for any executive. Fans can and will debate them, and that’s fine.

What I hope fans can remember above all else was Ujiri’s passion, the hopes he carried about making the world better, long outside of any arena.

The Raptors as a basketball team will be fine. Bobby Webster is eminently capable of leading an organization, to make the trades and draft picks and transition that can return the team to prominence.

ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½, though, will be lesser off because of Ujiri’s departure. We were enriched by what he did away from the game, by what he accomplished in the greater society.

I knew it that first day, and I know it today.

Masai Ujiri will be missed because of the man he is, not the sports executive he was.