Kwame Osei – Honouring the dreams of our young Black youth

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time”

He was susceptible to the street culture because he was reared in it. He embraced a perspective on life and future achievements that were on the lower end of the achievement spectrum, common of young men within the urban community where he lived.

While attending Father Henry Carr High School, his passion for football evolved, and he began his football career as a quarterback. In his senior year, he leads the team to their best record in school history. His athletic ability afforded him an opportunity to escape the societal low expectations that society had of him as an African man, and he ended up attending Vanier College in Montreal Quebec. He wanted to upgrade his marks with the hopes of earning an NCAA football scholarship, unfortunately, due to an injury in his final year, he decided to attend St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia instead of pursuing his dream to play NCAA football in the United States.

In 2015 he Co-founded a non-profit youth mentorship program called Northern Elite Football and is the author of two children’s books. He also co-founded a fitness clothing brand called Triumph Elite in 2014 which currently sponsors two professional athletes. You may have seen him on Season 6 Hero’s edition of the Amazing Race Canada show, and this ignited his thespian spirit.

In 2019, he moved to Kingston, Ontario to be an assistant coach for Queens University, and he became the Receiver Coach and Community Engagement Coordinator for the Queen’s Gaels. 

The dreams of our young Black men in Toronto, and around the world matter; their dreams deserve support, and their dream counts. Our Classic Man is helping our young Black men see that whatever they dream of, they are capable of. Dreams about creating the next tech giant, or running a Fortune 500 company, or opening restaurants, or winning Oscars for directing movies, or becoming real estate tycoons, or being elected president and changing the world, anything is possible, and his story is the perfect illustration of that. I would like to introduce a man who deserves celebration, the talented, resilient Kwame Osei.

“Your potential is the ‘you’ that nobody knows yet”

“I was born in Ghana, West Africa, and moved to Canada when I was four,” Kwame shared. “It was when I met my father for the first time. My dad was in the Navy and was able to go to school abroad, Italy, and then Canada, where he settled in Rexdale, Ontario.

Growing up in Ghana, I did not see anyone who was not Black. I was a happy kid and loved life. I remember walking down the street with my mom, and I saw a White family. I was blown away. I had never seen White people before. When I moved to Canada, it was completely different.

My parents sent me to Catholic school, and it was a negative experience for me. I felt like I didn’t belong. I was not represented anywhere: my books, the language, it left me feeling isolated, unattractive and rejected. I didn’t have positive images of Black men in my life, so I took on the roles of Black men that were perpetrated in the media. I began idolizing and looking up to Black men in my area, and for the wrong reasons. They had nice things: the women, the clothes. I got myself into some really bad situations. I lost friends to violence, some went to jail; looking back at it, I see that there were some low expectations that were set for me.

Kwame shares with me the story of a teacher, Mrs. Goveia, who started investing in him. Up to this day, she has had an impact on his life.

“In grade nine, I failed all my classes except gym and drama. I rarely went to school, and if I did, I would just be causing trouble. I admit. I was acting like a real bucket head. In Grade ten, they put me into streamed classes I was actually in ESL. There is no worst feeling. I was embarrassed and again, I felt like I didn’t belong. It is the lowest frequency you can be at. I was going to drop out of school, why bother going?

I remember when she realized that I was not a basic-level student. She let me do general work in basic class and the next year, I moved up to an advanced level. I was struggling because I felt like I wasn’t in the right space. The work was hard. I was getting 50’s or barely passing. Mrs. Goveia, choose to tutor me. She understood my learning style, and even though she was not my teacher, she helped me.”

Kwame became more confident, and the fact that she invested in him, he decided he would have to do more. He didn’t want to let her down.

“I ended up at Vanier College for two years, and it was in college that I read my first book. “The life at Pi.” I also went to St Francis Xavier University and I graduated with a Kinesiology Degree, and a Bachelor of Education Degree.

I almost got kicked out of university, and in my first year, I got into a really bad car accident. There was a snowstorm, the car lost traction and slid from our lane to the oncoming lane, and then back to our lane. There were no guardrails, and we skidded off the road and ended up in a ditch. All I remember was the silence. I came out of that without a scratch.”

Kwame was still battling his demons, and this came out in his behaviour. Although he had left the hood, his mentality had still not changed.

“I used to fight a lot in University, and this is one of the reasons that I nearly got kicked out. I nearly lost my arm due to fighting. I got a really bad infection in my hand after I punched a guy in his mouth. It all changed for me after that incident. I knew I had to get my act together, so I became more active in the school. I went from almost being kicked out of the university to being the poster boy of the university.”

Kwame played briefly with the Argonauts, and he tells me that he is grateful for the experience.

“After my time with the Argonauts, I went to Alberta to teach and ended up teaching there for eight years. I remember being there and being very depressed. I remember going to school and coming home, and something didn’t feel right. I had lost my identity. I didn’t know who I was outside of football.”

Kwame decided to get involved in coaching and working with non-profits, and from there, his life has engaged him in empowering opportunities to connect with young people.

“No one ever told us about all of the other possibilities the world offered. No one ever made us feel that we could achieve anything and everything we dreamed of. Now, I have the opportunity to do this for this generation of young Black men.”