The second-year basketball Stinger is a top scorer, despite being blind in one eye.
Jaheem Joseph plays basketball using one eye, and he has scored the most points in the RSEQ this season. The phenomenal shooting guard, in his second year at Concordia, is completely unphased by the fact that he only has five per cent vision in his right eye. It took lots of hard work to normalize his game.
Originally from Ottawa, Joseph spent his early years playing soccer. His father, a prolific basketball coach and ex-player, brought him to shoot around at their local gyms. This is where Jaheem discovered his love for basketball. He started playing on teams in his first year of secondary school, and discovered he had a talent when he was bumped up to play with older players due to his exceptional gameplay.
It was in July of 2020 that the hooper’s life would change forever. He and his friends were messing with fireworks at the park, and one flew into his right eye. At the time, he was getting ready to head to St. Benedict’s Preparatory School in New Jersey to pursue his athletic potential in America. Due to the unfortunate accident, he was now limited to rehabilitation, numerous surgical procedures and the classroom.
It was in April of the following year that Joseph would be ready to step on the hardwood again, accompanied by his high school athletic trainer Isabelle Chiasson at Saint Laurent Express. The two would spend four hours daily, every day for four months, performing sensory exercises and finding solutions to his impairment. Running, head positioning, positioning on the court and spatial awareness were their main targets for improvement.
That summer, Joseph played against Vanier College in the finals of a tournament while he was on the Red Rush Basketball Program, which is part of a grassroots leadership organization. The guard put on an incredible performance for a decisive win, and attracted attention from the CEGEP’s coach.
“I just felt really natural. I felt like everything was just normal, like I’ve been through nothing in my life,” said the guard remembering the game. “It was just like playing basketball or just doing what I love. It was pretty normal, but when we go way back, I know it was all the work I had done with coach [Chiasson], of course.”
This 2023-24 season, Joseph dominated with the Stingers. He finished as the league’s second top-scorer, averaging 15.8 points per game. This was after being injured for two weeks after spraining his ankle playing at Université Laval on Nov. 25, before suffering a light concussion for a couple of days this past January.
Joseph was selected for the RSEQ All-Star second team, despite these outstanding statistics which he had thought sufficient to land him a place in the first team.
“I couldn’t understand why I got second team, but I feel like it’s pretty good,” he said. “I mean, I had a good season and I showed I should have been an all star this year, and then I think the next year coming up I can probably get on the first team and be MVP (Most Valuable Player) of the league one day.”
The star is grateful to have strong supportive people surrounding him, including head coach Rastko Popović, who was named RSEQ coach of the year in March. The trainer’s obsession with the game is contagious to his players.
“[Popović] locks himself up and then just watches [game recap] film until he gets tired,” said Joseph. “You can see on film—it says he was watching a clip at 4:00 a.m., so he is crazy about details, but that’s what makes us like the number one team. So it’s really the passion, the drive that he has that really got the team going.”
Joseph is looking forward to next season, where he will be looking to prove himself all while being more supportive for the team.
Having only come up short by a hair this season when losing in the RSEQ finals to the UQAM Citadins, the Stingers team evidently has amazing potential. With more hard work, Jaheem Joseph and the men’s basketball team are sure to go the whole way next season.
