Aaron Rhooms, built on belief and family bond, looks to make history with TMU at U Sports Final 8

Her first real foray into the kitchen was back when she was barely a teenager. Zoë Rhooms knew the athlete in the family had a sweet tooth and she always looked out for her big brother, Aaron. When he was nine, Aaron told Zoë and their parents that when he grew up, he was going to be the next Batman. Then a few weeks later, Aaron came home from school and declared to everyone he had changed career paths — a basketball player he’d be.

No matter which superhero costume he chose to wear, by high school Aaron Rhooms had himself a guilty pleasure: those warm, homemade, chocolate chip cookies Zoë would make. And every now and again in those days, whether it was to celebrate or maybe sensing he could use a pick-me-up, Zoë would put on an apron, follow instructions out of a cookbook line by line, and whip up the goods. 

Aaron kept eating them and Zoë kept baking them. And as the years went on, with her brother appreciating tweaks to the recipe, Zoë now has her own method to making the best chocolate chip cookies in the neighbourhood. Aaron raves that his sister is on her way to becoming a Michelin-star chef. 

But Zoë Rhooms isn’t just an incredible cook. 

“She’s been the glue for our family,” Marcia Rhooms says of her 19-year-old daughter. 

On Wednesday evening, Aaron Rhooms will likely hear his name called as the national player of the year in U Sports men’s basketball. As deserving as it is for the season he’s had, in a lot of ways it is the reward for one of the all-time great careers in Canadian university hoops. 

Rhooms has been the catalyst to the turnaround of Toronto Metropolitan University’s (TMU) program and becoming a threat to win a national championship this week. He is on his way to playing professionally in the fall, likely overseas. And at a time where so many top-level Canadian student-athletes are looking for greener pastures south of the border — and the NIL money that can come with it — Aaron has stayed put.

Just like Zoë did five years ago, when she was only 14. 

Zoë made the decision then that she would be home schooled when tragedy hit the family. When their father, Roland, died suddenly, a seismic void for Marcia and her children.

“I’m just so grateful for her,” Aaron says.

As Marcia puts it, Zoe “took on more adult roles as a child and not because I wanted it, but because of the sheer volume of things we had to deal with. She picked up the slack. 

“That allowed Aaron the freedom to be able to still go to school and practice, and put more time in the gym. I don’t know where we would be, or where Aaron would be, without Zoë.”

The clock had stopped with four seconds remaining in the regular-season finale, the game tied at 79. It was Feb. 15, senior’s night at TMU, and while there had been pomp and circumstance at the beginning of the evening to celebrate the team’s graduating players, by late in the night, TMU’s hopes for a real post-season run would come down to this. The BOLD needed this one against Lakehead. A win would clinch a bye through the opening round of the gauntlet known as the OUA playoffs and presented the ideal path out of Ontario to reach the U Sports Final 8 — Canada’s version of March Madness. 

TMU had possession in its frontcourt, ready to inbound. Everyone in the gym knew where the ball was headed when 6-foot-4 sophomore Kevin Toth stood to the left of the scorer’s table and lifted the ball into the air.