STORYTELLER - WILLIAM KERMOURY

The first time I met William Kermoury was back in 2018 at KFUM, a local gym in Stockholm. I was in the weight room and you can see the basketball court thru a glass wall. William was there shooting by himself. I walked in to the gym and we talked for a couple of minutes and what stood out was how mature he was, both physically and mentally. I think he was barely 14 and I'd heard about him all season, how he was supposedly the number 1 player in his class. He was humble, and asked me to work out for a bit. That young boy could shoot, I tell you that.

William was born 2004 and grew up in Solna outside of Stockholm. His dad, Rachid Kermoury, was a great player in the Swedish top league and won a National Title with Norrköping Dolphins. His uncle is also a former hooper, National treasure Lesli Myrthil.

As a kid William was always in the gym with his dad and uncle, and even tho soccer was his first sport, basketball was always in his genes. He started to play and together with his cousin Dante and fellow Storyteller Tunde they formed a great 2004 squad in Solna Vikings under newly retired Lesli Myrthil as the Head Coach.

During their run in the youth leagues they demolished more or less all "competition" and won every game for a couple of years. During this off season all three of them (and Dante's older brother Romeo) came to our practices and played. After a scrimmage it came natural that we got to talking about their dominant run as teens, and the more quiet Tunde claims he should've gotten MVP during their last run for a National Title. But William claims his 40-some point performance was better than Tunde's 28 rebounds. Dante smiled and chimed in with some stats of his own, while Romeo just shook his head. It's crazy to think that all of them grew up and played together.

"William is more than just a cousin, he's more like a brother to both of us. He is also the most confident guy we know." - Dante and Romeo Myrthil 2023

It's cool, because they all took different routes. Tunde left for Greece, Dante and Romeo both got accepted to RIG Mark while William went semi-pro as a 14 year "old".

In september of 2019 as I was working with SBBK, we were doing all the content and promos for the upcoming season, and earlier that summer William had signed a 5 year deal with the club. So we got to spend a whole day in the studio together and I asked some of the older veterans like Martin Pahlmblad about what it's like to have such a young player as a teammate. He said "well, he's not your average 14 year old, that's for sure."

During that season, before it got shut down by Covid, I spent a lot of time with the team, and I always made sure to check on William to see that he was doing OK. My son and him became friends, and I got a video of him throwing William an alley-oop after a practice. He was still only 14.

William didn't play big minutes, but sometimes I'd look at the box scores from the Basketettan team and see that William had 40 points. And during the Nationals for U19 he'd be even more crazy, having triple doubles and a couple of in game dunks. As the seasons went by, William's role got bigger and he became a rotation player, and it was always cool to see how he improved.

As I go to Södertälje for Scania Cup or something, I'd always made sure to watch at least 1 of his games just to see how he matched up against his peers, and he was always one level above the rest. Even when my family friend played against SBBK in the Final Four of the Nationals last season and William was out sick, the talk was "maybe they can upset, because Kermoury isn't playing". That's how dominant he's been against his own age group.

Last summer as the 2004-05 guys played in the U18 Euro Basket, Kermoury was one of the starting guards with the great Elliott Cadeau. This was a team filled with both friends of ours (Tunde, Linus Holmström and William Garcia) and standouts who many of them will have great careers. They won gold, and brought Sweden back to the A-division. Unfortunately all except Linus are playing with U20 this summer, and last week they left for Macedonia to play Euro Basket. Before he left for the airport, we talked on the phone about life and expectations for the tournament. William is the first to acknowledge that whatever happened last year doesn't mean anything now, that it's a new challenge and the U20 squad is missing 3 of their best players. But he said he looks forward to the challenge and I asked him if the 37 points performance in the Nordic Championships the week before was the best we'll see this summer. He said "I hope not."

Earlier this summer William announced that he's committed to play D1 at North Eastern, the same school as the late great Reggie Lewis. If you don't know who that is, here's a reason why Google exists. William had plenty of offers to chose from, and when I asked him if he felt excited, he said he'd never even been to the states yet. And that alone was exciting for him. After Euro Basket he's going there for a visit and when I asked him about the whole Boston Celtics vs LeBron rivalry he said "man that'll be hard, since I'm a LeBron fan I really don't like Boston..."

Sweden is currently unbeaten after 4 games and the other night William had a big game with 20-9-4 and Tunde contributed with 15 points. The two childhood friends really went from soccer prospects to leading the National Team in scoring as the youngsters on the roster. And last year when Tunde was rushed to the hospital with a fractured wrist (after a chase down block in the Finals...) it was William who accepted Tunde's All-Star award. If you look, you'll see him holding up Tundes number. I know it's been a lot of talk about William since he was 13 or some, and he's been walking the walk ever since.

It's crazy to think it's been 4 years already since I met him the first time at KFUM, and it feels like it was last season. And even tho he experienced lots of cool things, like being the youngest to ever play Champions League, winning gold at the Euro Basket and getting scholarships, he's still the same humble and well mannered kid. Just way better at basketball.