Otieno visits WCHS as part of Black History Month events
By Garrett Simmons
Lethbridge School Division
Kenny Otieno was born in Nairobi, Kenya.
His family moved to Vancouver when he was young, and eventually settled in Lethbridge.
It was here, in the heart of southern Alberta, where Otieno developed a love of basketball, a sport that has taken him across Canada and around the world.
First at Wilson Middle School and then at Winston Churchill High School, Otieno honed his craft. The 2009 Churchill grad capped off his high school career with a 3A provincial bronze medal, after a season where he helped fill the gym each night with his electric play, as he averaged 20 points and 10 rebounds per contest.
On Thursday, Otieno returned to Churchill to speak to students inside a packed gym in honour of Black History Month - Black Excellence: A Heritage to Celebrate; A Future to Build.
The Churchill grad played three seasons on the senior varsity Bulldogs basketball team, and eventually earned attention at the university level. After his WCHS career, Otieno spent four seasons with the University of Alberta Golden Bears, where he won a Canada West championship, along with a national bronze medal, in 2014. Otieno was named team MVP and took home the University of Alberta President's Trophy Award for achievement in sports and academics.
A professional career followed, as Otieno suited up for the Edmonton Stingers of the Canadian Elite Basketball League and spent time in the National Basketball league of Canada, along with LEB Plata in the Spanish basketball system.
He is now the head coach for the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns men's basketball team. But it was his time at WCHS that set everything in motion.
“My experience here was fantastic,” said Otieno. “I think I came at a time where basketball was growing slowly but surely in Lethbridge and in southern Alberta in general. I was able to have some success here in terms of changing the outcomes of the wins and loses when I started playing here.”
The provincial bronze medal certainly highlighted his time on the court at Churchill, which started in Grade 9, when he had his one and only opportunity to play with his older brother, who was a senior at the time.
“I definitely remember the early years, gaining confidence and just taking that momentum into the next couple of years at Churchill, where things started to click,” he said. “I definitely valued my time here and learned a lot of lessons and values that I still carry to this day.”
Some of those early lessons also came from his father, who was an engineer in Kenya. When the family relocated to Vancouver, he took job at a local grocery store, while his mother stayed home to look after the family’s three children.
Through perseverance, determination and hard work, his father earned the opportunity to continue his engineering career in Canada, and the family moved to Lethbridge.
Growing up in southern Alberta wasn’t always easy, Otieno told Churchill students.
“Being that we’re celebrating Black History Month, I want to highlight my experiences of being a black kid in Lethbridge, early in my years here at Wilson to Churchill, and then explain how fortunate I am to be in the position I am in today through the struggles I have gone through,” he said. “I want to relate that to the hardships through the different things I’ve been through, whether that’s been racism or struggles that I’ve had on the court – all of that has shaped me into who I am today. Hopefully that will be motivating to some of these kids, that if I can do it, they can do it too.”
Sports was the catalyst for Otieno, and basketball his motivating factor.
“The game of basketball has blessed me and I was able to play at the University of Alberta for a great program, and really expanded my game there so I could take it have the opportunity to play professionally after.”
He is now back in the city where it all started, with the University of Lethbridge, as head coach of the Pronghorns men’s basketball team.
“It’s been a challenge,” he said. “This year especially, stepping into the head coach role – it’s definitely not an easy task, and not a task I take lightly in terms of my commitment to it. I’m enjoying it. Having the opportunity to be in the gym every day and coach the young group of men I have right now to be successful in their future, whether it’s basketball or not, I think that’s a pretty important place for me to be in right now. It’s a full circle moment – I started out here in Lethbridge and now I’m back giving back to the community. I’m extremely lucky and fortune.”
As Churchill continues to Celebrate Black History Month, another former student is set to speak at the high school. On Feb. 27, Bariyaa Ipaa is scheduled to present to students.
Ipaa graduated from WCHS in 2015, and is a first-generation Nigerian Canadian artist based in Lethbridge.
“I am a Contemporary African artist and my artistic genre is shaped by my dual African Canadian Identity,” he said. “As a refugee immigrant and a first-generation Canadian, my artistic approach focuses on the continuous process of renegotiating and defining the liminal space that defines my diaspora identity. And in doing so, slowly moving from a space of neither being here nor there, into a shifting but tangible place.”
Ipaa has always been passionate about art. Throughout high school, he explored this passion and discovered more about his love for creating, and about himself.
Three other Churchill grads – Bari Ipaa, Chelsea Oyebola and Julien Todd, are part of this month’s celebration series at WCHS.
Black History Month at WCHS
