nakisa levale

rugby school: Abbotsford freshman’s future: Victoria

Nakisa Levale is so grounded that it seems only fitting that any tribute to her substantial skills as a rugby player start with her cleats.

“She has magic feet,” says Stephanie Doan, a longtime coach with the Abbotsford Secondary senior girls team which Levale helped lead to a pair of provincial Double A championships over her three seasons with the team.

It has been within the eye of her sport’s storm of physicality that Levale has been able to shine, flowing on feet filled with feign and fake, feet that tease and lie and, ultimately, create the spacious canvas on which the centre is able to stand front-and-centre as the painter of her Panthers’ pack.

Ask Levale about it, and her first instinct is to call it instinctive, to call it a part of her own unique DNA, one that stems from her father Poi, a native of Samoa, the South Pacific nation where the game is a birthright.

“My dad is the main reason I am playing rugby,” says Levale. “Ever since I was young, we would be at the beach or at the park, just passing the ball around.

“And my feet? My dad and my uncles, who are also Samoan, they really helped me in that area. For us, it’s about expressing ourselves. They taught me all the side taps, how to be unpredictable, and to have quick feet.”

Place that passionate style of rugby alongside Levale’s personality and you get someone who can only be described as a favourite — a player universally loved by fans, teammates and even foes.

“Even her opponents love her,” says Doan. “I think anyone who has watched her play is in awe of her skills. She is so grounded and humble, yet such a competitor.”

After much deliberation, Levale has chosen to continue her collegiate rugby career next season playing for the Vikes at the University of Victoria.

She hopes it’s her bridge to a future spot on the senior national team.

But there’s another goal Levale harbours in the lead-up to her new life in the provincial capital.

The youth Commonwealth Games are scheduled for September, and tryouts for the Canadian team had her right in the mix.

Quite incredibly, for the kid with the magic feet, those games are being held in Samoa.

“It would be the best rugby experience I could ask for,” Levale says. “That is where my passion for the sport originated. To play rugby in Samoa would be an amazing opportunity.”