Osei signs with Toronto Argonauts
Former X-Men wide receiver Kwame Osei was signed recently as a non-import by the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League.
Osei is currently participating in the Argos training camp and battling for a spot on the roster. A Toronto native, he played the past five seasons with the X-Men and was a co-captain with the team. Osei graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts in Human Kinetics and recently completed his first year of the Bachelor of Education program at StFX.
"We were very proud to learn of Kwame's signing with the Toronto Argonuats," comments X-Men head coach Gary Waterman. "As a former X-Men team captain, Kwame represented a deep faith in God and a commitment to hard work. It is very gratifying to see him awarded for his efforts and it is much deserved."
As a member of the StFX grid iron, Osei was a strong leader both on and off the field. He was the 2010 recipient of the AUS Student-Athlete Community Service Award and nominee for the CIS Russ Jackson Award.
He led all X-Men receivers last season in total receptions with 23, averaging 26.9 yards/game. He tallied 215 total receiving yards on the year on an X squad that struggled with a 1-7 season record.
Osei joins several of his fellow former StFX teammates who are also participating in CFL training camps. Linebacker Henoc Muamba was drafted first overall this past spring by the Winnipeg BlueBombers, while Cauchy Muamba (S) and Akeem Foster (WR) are in their second season with the BC Lions.
The following feature story appeared in the Globe and Mail on Friday, June 10, 2011, courtesy Rachel Brady.
Argos bring WR Kwame Osei into camp
Kwame Osei has scars on his face and his knuckles to remind him of where he grew up and the trouble he used to find. Knives, guns, gangs and fights were a regular part of life before he got serious about football.
The wide receiver wasn’t drafted out of St. Francis Xavier University where he was captain and just finished his fifth season, but he is finally getting a chance in the Canadian Football League as the Toronto Argonauts brought him into training camp in Mississauga on Thursday, not far from where he was raised in the suburb of Rexdale, surrounded by gang violence.
“I was sliced when I was younger,” said Osei at camp Thursday, pointing to scars on his chin and above his right eyebrow. “Yeah, I was in fights, I had guns pointed at me. I’ve seen people stabbed. But I’m so happy God pushed me in the right direction.”
Unlike many young people in his neighbourhood, Osei had a mother and father at home, who loved him and taught him right from wrong, yet Osei still found the wrong crowd.
The six foot, 205-pound receiver credits his teammates at StFX for helping him turn around his life around, including Henoc Muamba, who was drafted first overall by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in this year’s CFL Draft.
The two were roommates at StFX, along with Muamba’s brother Cauchy and Akeem Foster, who both now play for the B.C. Lions. The roommates would attend church together on Sundays. They used to gather at the school’s football field on early wintry mornings in Antigonish, Nova Scotia for extra training, weighing down a sled with heavy plates to slug it across the football field.
“We called ourselves the Spartans because the work ethic we built was amazing,” said Osei. “We would also simulate an away game and act like the fans heckling, screaming out the nastiest things we can ever imagine they might say. We know each other so well, we know what would make each other so angry.”
Their friendship helped when the transition from Rexdale to the small Nova Scotia university town wasn’t easy for Osei. Even though he attended a small college in Quebec in between, he admits that in the first year and a half at StFX, he was still used to “the old city life”. He still has a scar across his knuckles from punching out someone who made a racist remark to him.
Shortly after that, he was a passenger in a car that rolled off a ramp and flipped upside down in a snow storm along a steep section of highway near Halifax. Osei escaped unharmed, and it changed his outlook.
“That day I knew God was working for me,” said Osei. “I was like, I better take school and football more seriously and start putting my heart into this.”
Osei is all business today, as he jumped at the chance to show what he can do in Argos camp. He was working as a trainer at a Toronto gym until earlier this week, still working out every day, waiting for the call he sometimes thought would never come.
“He’s got a couple of weeks to show what he can do,” said Argos head coach and general manager Jim Barker. “Today, he did not look out of place, and that’s a good thing.”
Osei’s friends were thrilled to hear that the friend who has become so dedicated to football is finally getting a chance. They share a Blackberry messenger group called K.A.C.H after the initials in each of the rommates' first names, symbolic of “catching” the opportunities that come their way.
“When he told me that he got the call I was filled with joy and excited for him because I know how much we prayed for this, how bad he wants it and worked for it,” said Muamba by email. “Good things happen to those who wait.”