From ‘The W’ to the world, basketball star Aaliyah Edwards is living the dream

Aaliyah Edwards is living her dream. From Kingston Impact to UConn Huskies, and now the WNBA, she's about to make her mark on Team Canada as they prepare for the Paris Olympics.

There’s no other way to put it: Kingston’s Aaliyah Edwards is living the dream.

At a young age, while playing for the Kingston Impact, it was clear she would become something special. She followed that up by winning city, regional and provincial championships at Frontenac Secondary School and eventually landed a scholarship to play with the UConn Huskies in the NCAA south of the border, receiving countless awards and honours during her four years in Storrs, Conn..

Although she never achieved her goal of winning a national championship, her sights were always set on making the WNBA. This spring, that dream came true when she was selected sixth overall by the Washington Mystics.

She didn’t have much time to relish the accomplishment, however. There was less than a month of turnaround between the draft and the start of the season.

Now halfway through her first WNBA campaign, Edwards is putting up decent numbers while coming off the bench, something she hasn’t done since her freshman year at UConn. She’s averaging 8.6 points per game and just under six rebounds, putting her sixth in team scoring.

“Right now, I’m just making sure that I’m bringing the same energy that the first group is bringing and vice versa,” Edwards said on a Zoom call from Washington, DC. “If I’m starting, I’m going to start to set the tone with the first group.”

That mentality has made Edwards one of the top rookies this season along with Indiana’s Caitlin Clark and Chicago’s Angel Reese. It’s also made league veterans, like Las Vegas’ A’ja Wilson, take notice of the 22-year-old, even offering words of encouragement before the two played each other for the first time.

“Everyone has expectations but to get the validation from those vets means everything to me. Those are the people I was watching on TV before I came to league,” Edwards said.