Years before head coach Dani Sinclair led the Carleton Ravens’ women’s basketball team, she dreamed of becoming a school teacher.
“I think at a pretty early age, I knew I wanted to go in [a teaching] direction,” she said. “All the people that had an impact on my life outside of my family were coaches and teachers.”
Becoming a coach against her original plans, Sinclair has played a crucial role from the sidelines since 2020, helping to pave the team’s success. Sinclair has earned a number of coaching honours, including two straight OUA Coach of the Year and Ravens Coach of the Year titles, as well as the 2025 Peter Ennis Award as U Sports Coach of the Year.
Meanwhile, the Raven’s women’s basketball team has forged a reputation as one of the strongest programs in the country.
In just five years, the Ravens have made three consecutive appearances in the Critelli Cup and U Sports Final 8 championships, winning both in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons. While they fell short of a three-peat, this year’s squad became the second in program history to complete an undefeated OUA regular season.
While coaching wasn’t something Sinclair actively planned to pursue, she said the ability to combine her eventual passions for basketball and teaching piqued her interest.
Growing up across the street from the University of Guelph in a home that frequently housed student athletes, she was continuously immersed in university sports.
It wasn’t until Grade 8 that Sinclair got into basketball, learning from her mother, a basketball coach herself.
From there, her love for the sport grew, leading to successful playing careers with McMaster University and the University of Victoria (UVic). During her three years at McMaster, Sinclair was named U Sports Rookie of the Year and earned multiple OUA All-Star honours.
In her last season, she was named McMaster’s Female Athlete of the Year.
Sinclair spent her final two years of eligibility at UVic, where she won a national championship before stepping away from university basketball in 2004.
During that time, Sinclair was still involved in the game. When she wasn’t teaching high school history and physical education, she worked for a basketball program, coaching students in Grades 4 through 8.
Sinclair returned to UVic in 2005 as an assistant coach and was named head coach in April 2012. And after a stint at Dalhousie University, she returned to Ontario in 2020 to coach the Ravens.
“I admired Carleton basketball from afar for a long time and to have the opportunity to be a part of the program was one that was really hard to turn down,” she said.
Sinclair added that the offer came from Dave Smart, who she referred to as “the architect of Carleton basketball.”
Dave Smart served he Carleton Ravens basketball program for 24 years, becoming one of the most decorated Canadian university basketball coaches. He spent most of his time at Carleton as a head coach, working with both the men’s and women’s programs, before becoming head coach of the Pacific Tigers men’s basketball team in the NCAA in March 2024.
“I can’t lie and not admit that was a huge, huge part of wanting to come out and [coach here],” Sinclair said.
Before Sinclair took the reins, Smart had just led the Ravens to their first Critelli Cup and Bronze Baby wins, finishing the 2017-18 season with their first undefeated record of 29-0.
While the start of the COVID-19 pandemic meant Sinclair couldn’t help the team defend these titles right away, it meant chemistry could form off the court.
“It gave us a chance to get to know each other,” she said. “I’m not somebody that would walk into a situation and then just take over.”
There were high expectations for the Ravens when the league started back up in the 2021-22 season.
She was aware of the team’s ability, with many of the players having championship wins under their belts and was disappointed when they came up short in the OUA semi-finals.
“I thought we kind of underperformed,” she said. “We had a good year, but not a great year.”
The “good year” ended up being a helpful building block.
Sinclair said one of the most important parts of taking over a program is being able to recruit new players to build a strong team foundation.
One of those players from Sinclair’s first recruitment class is third-year forward Jacqueline Urban from Ancaster, Ont, who says she was immediately drawn to the Ravens basketball program.
“One word I used to describe it was ‘militant,’” she said. “There was a lot of structure in everything that they did and there was a purpose behind everything. And then I just fell in love with the coaches and everything they stood for.”
Urban described her relationship with Sinclair as comfortable and honest.
“I’m very comfortable being my authentic self with her, through the good and the bad emotions that I may have,” she said, adding that a key factor is separating qualms from the heat of the moment.
“You’re taking the value of what she says, not necessarily how she says it,” Urban said. “On the court and off the court are two totally different things.”
Urban added that on the court, their relationship is more focused and business-like, while off the court the two have a “really joking, fun relationship.”
“I think that’s a side that a lot of people don’t see, but it’s one thing that I value a lot.”
Over the years, this comfort allowed Urban to become a leader in some of the toughest games. This season, they happened to be the ones with the highest stakes: the provincial and national finals.
Urban said that after those two losses, the team talked a lot about “correctible emotions” — Sinclair’s way of helping them turn negative feelings into motivation.
“She has such a good way with words and she understands the moment really well, when it needs to be used and maybe when there’s some grace that needs to be had,” Urban said.
Despite the initial disappointment, Urban, who is coming off a career best 277 points, said that she and her teammates are excited to put in the work for next year with the ultimate goal of acquiring another nationals berth and tasting victory once again.
“There’s this innocence to the first one,” Sinclair said. “I heard someone describe it as the worst day of your life because you will forever strive for that feeling again and again and again.”
Constantly raising the bar for success gives her team something to look forward to, Sinclair added.
“There’s a bit of healthy paranoia there to just keep focusing on the work that needs to be done.”
The FISU 3×3 tournaments were one of the Ravens’ biggest opportunities in the 2024 season to showcase their skill. In May 2024, a handful of players travelled to Argentina, winning the Americas 3×3 championship. That November, they travelled to China for the 3×3 World Cup.
Kwesi Loney, head director for High Performance Sport at Carleton, said the decision to compete in the tournament was difficult, as it conflicted with the OUA regular season.
Still, the value of the opportunity overruled doubts.
“Dani saw the value of our players travelling and also saw it as an opportunity for the other players at home to step up and find their place,” he said. “I think that decision alone shows Dani’s view of the team and how she sees development and growth.”
While Sinclair stayed in Ottawa to coach the team, Loney headed to China with four of Carleton’s top players, including Urban. He emphasized that throughout the tournament, he continued to be impressed by the roster’s positive habits.
“The team is always gonna be an extension of their coach,” he said. “You can always tell a lot about a coach’s personality by how their team performs and how they behave off the court.”
Ending the tournament with a second-place finish, the international 3×3 silver medalists returned to a team that had kept their win streak alive, in what would eventually result in an undefeated regular season.
“Seeing how hard they fought for us and for themselves made us want to come back and play stronger,” Urban said.
Although she led the team to another fairly successful season, Sinclair said she is no stranger to criticism from audiences who question her behaviour on the sidelines.
“I think it’s a little bit of a double standard,” Sinclair said. “Some of what I hear is, ‘I don’t know what you’re saying, but I don’t like your face.’ Well, I’m typically just giving instruction.”
Sinclair added that she doesn’t focus on winning over “haters.”
“I’m not gonna change who I am because of some people that don’t like me,” she said. “I care most about the people around me.
“If an athlete came to me and had concerns, then that would be a different story.”
For Urban and Loney, what some construe as anger is actually the passion that makes Sinclair a successful coach.
“Any time you’re in the public eye, I think you’re always going to have feedback and different opinions,” Loney said. “I think sometimes people don’t understand how vulnerable coaches are, how [vulnerable] they have to be in their job.”
Despite the public criticism, Sinclair said there are still “a lot of people” who speak to her positively about the athletes and staff.
But Sinclair isn’t in it for the praise.
“What I enjoy most is the people,” she said. “As much fun as it’s been for us to have success on the court, that’s not why we do this.
“If you’re just out here to chase championships, you’re not gonna have a lot of fun.”
There is often a misconception, she explained, that a team has to operate efficiently at all times.
“The people who are the best at what they do are vulnerable … and talk about their mistakes more than they talk about their successes,” Sinclair said. “That’s how they become so successful.
“They don’t just pat themselves on the back and hide their mistakes.”
Sinclair said that through all the success and failure, there’s no other group she would want by her side.
“I look forward to coming to work every single day, even on hard days or even after days that we’ve lost. There’s an excitement in being around these people,” she said.
“I can’t really imagine doing anything else.”
Featured image by Janson Duench/the Charlatan
