Life on the Road is Reality for Our Boys' Cage Coach

By Michael Clarkson

Luckily for his players, FEIA boys’ basketball head coach Kemy Osse understands life away from home and family.

All the hoopsters on his Falcons roster are boarding students.

Life on the road has been a reality for Kemy since he was born in Montreal in 1993. At 15, he left to play at Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, D.C., where he experienced culture shock, having spoken French at school and Creole at home.

Then it was onto a scholarship at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and finally to play for Canada internationally and several professional teams in this country with a co-captaincy with the Montreal Alliance of the Canadian Elite Basketball League.

“I can relate to my players here. They don’t get to see their families,” he says. “In fact, I use this in my recruiting speeches. I tell players “I was one of you guys; I’ve been through the ups and downs; I feel how you feel away from home.” Montreal is always going to be my home base, although I’ve never spent more than two years there since I was 15.”

Kemy’s parents and his five older siblings were all born in Haiti. His brothers, John and Nelson, introduced him to the game at a community centre in Montreal. “My mother wanted me to sing in the church choir, but I spent most of my days and nights in the gym. My brothers helped raise me; they taught me character and work ethic. Nobody ever babied me.”

In 2012, Osse’s dream came true when he received a full NCAA Division I basketball scholarship to at Little Rock, where he spent four years and scored the winning basket as the Trojans upset Purdue in the 2016 March Madness. “Even now, I text some of my best friends from that Little Rock team. It’s more than just a game, but a friendship and bonding experience.”

In 2021, Osse appeared in a tournament at FEIA as head coach of the Montreal Dynasty prep team and was shortly after hired by the Falcons. His presence helps our team recruit from La Belle Province.

Happy-go-lucky off the court but intense during games and practises, Kemy has grown to like Fort Erie. “It’s a small community and I wasn’t used to that in Montreal. Everybody knows everybody else. We’ve built a college basketball type of culture because that’s where the players aspire to go. But we remind them they have to be students first, and they are. We coach life skills, getting them ready for life after basketball.”

Kemy has just five returning players from last season, but the team is infused with many promising newcomers and the team seems bigger and better defensively than in 2025-26.

Falcons won both their games in the Sept. 12-13 in the Montreal Showcase Tournament with fresh faces Grady Kapuanya, Nolan Diba and Amari Upshaw shining brightly alongside returnees Deng Ngor, Junior Jean-Marie and Pierre Charles Yimga.

They will play in an event in Las Vegas Oct. 1-3.

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