Obituary: Basketball will miss Ronnie Kasewu’s energy and intensity

RONNIE KASEWU, the former Kyambogo Warriors star, died September 11 aged 42 years.

Definitely one of the greatest to play the game, Kasewu stood out in big moments for his electrifying energy and ability to take the game into his own hands, writes John Vianney Nsimbe.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed former basketball star Ivan Enabu. During our conversation, we went back many years, reminiscing about the 2012 National Basketball League (NBL) won by Kyambogo Warriors.

While it was the only championship that Enabu won in what was a career littered with nearly misses, it was the second crown for Kasewu. Incidentally, Enabu spoke at length about Kasewu:

“Those playoff finals against the Falcons that year were pretty tough. We were facing a team that had Jeff Omondi and above all, Stephen Omony. These two were really formidable opponents that gave us a really tough time throughout. But our go-to-guy on the offensive side was Kasewu. Even though we also had Norman Blick, Kasewu was in such blistering form. He was hard to stop, both on the outside and on the inside. He was on fire throughout.”

And, indeed, the fire that Kasewu brought, helped Warriors win the best of seven series 4-2. While at the end of the day, Blick won the finals MVP award, to Enabu, it was evident that the whole team was full of MVPs, and not least among them was Kasewu; a real good friend of his.

Little did we ever imagine that days later, the talk about Kasewu would be in past tense. Friday, September 11 started as a normal day for Kasewu but he passed on after motor accident.

History will always look back on Kasewu’s time in the game with fondness. In 2009, when he was the MVP, Warriors bagged their first championship. Yet, because of what he was in terms of personality, he was never assuming.

He was a laidback individual, that spoke little and normally kept to himself. But his passion for basketball was distinct. Despite playing initially handball, a sport he left because he felt it brought him so many wrist injuries, he joined the Warriors in 2000.

It was an easy choice to make considering that for most of his life, he lived in Kyambogo. After Kyambogo Primary School, Kasewu went to Kyambogo College School, before pursuing a degree in Education at Kyambogo University. So, because of proximity, the Warriors became his point of call. It was his life.

“I remember, when I joined Warriors in 2001, he was one of the first guys I closely related with because of his warm demeanour. He was the kind of guy one would never have a problem with. Kasewu confronted no one,” said Brian Gumisiriza, Warriors’ former centre.

Gumisiriza added that because Kasewu never spoke a lot, it was easy to ignore how good an athlete he was. Beyond his commitment to basketball, which Gumisiriza recalls was top as far as Kasewu is concerned, he behaved like a professional.

Gumisiriza noted that Kasewu trained really hard, and when he was not on court, he would be resting and waiting for the next session. That is what made him the good player he was. He gave time to the sport with utmost dedication, probably more than any of his teammates.

No wonder, he ended up becoming the clutch player for his team.

“Few players were as naturally gifted as Kasewu. He could play from number one to four comfortably, and to great effect. He was the one player our coaches always switched positions to solve a problem,” Gumisiriza said.

He was that good. In fact, very few players in this country have had the knack to be as versatile as Kasewu was. Maybe Omony and Blick have had that versatility. We all know how they highly regarded they have been since they retired.

Like Omony, Kasewu also wore the shirt number 12. However, Kasewu’s love for basketball was also projected further by his admiration for the late LA Lakers star, Kobe Bryant.

Apart from supporting Arsenal FC, Kasewu followed Bryant keenly and whatever he did on the court to a point that he predominantly played in his same position as a shooting guard of small forward.

Yet, like Bryant, he was not afraid to take matters into his hands by switching positions to impact the game more. Kobe died in a helicopter crash back in 2020 aged 41, while the car accident that ended Kasewu’s life, happened when he was 42.

Information has it that Kasewu was walking by the roadside, as he returned from a clinic, where he had gone to receive treatment for malaria, before a Toyota Mark X drove straight into him.

By the time rescuers reached Kasewu on the scene of the accident, he had suffered broken limbs and a fractured skull, with blood oozing out of his body. He was unrecognisable following the effects of the accident.

He was then rushed to Mulago hospital, but they could not find a bed for him to be admitted. His caregivers then rushed him to Medipal where he was pronounced dead. Born in 1983, Kasewu had two brothers and a sister.

Unfortunately, just over a year ago, his elder brother was killed in a motor accident in the USA. Kasewu is now survived by his two siblings. He also had a son and a daughter. For a while now, Kasewu has been in and out of rehabilitation as he tried to fight off alcohol and smoking addictions.

It affected his life a lot, that he lost contact with a host of his mates. Instead, it was his siblings and mother that were his caregivers. The irony, however, is that while he was trying to beat that struggle, to get back on track, his life was ended by a seeming “stray bullet” in the shape of a car, which robbed the basketball fraternity of one of its greatest basketball players ever!

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