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Alex Kemp ’28 died on Jan. 7, following a skiing accident the previous day. He was 19.
In interviews with the Record, family members, friends, teammates, and members of the community remembered Alex as a steadfast friend and a hard worker who excelled in his academic and athletic pursuits. Over the course of his first semester, they said, he took full advantage of the College’s academic and extracurricular opportunities while supporting and bringing joy to the people around him.
“He had this ability to inspire through just being himself,” said Alex Denzler, one of Alex’s childhood friends. “He wanted to accomplish his goals — and he brought people with him.”
Dan Kemp, Alex’s father, praised his ability to bring people together. “He matured over the last couple of years beyond his years and quite independently,” Dan said. “He became an even more wonderful guy. He could command a room of people so well. He was so friendly and courteous.”
“At some point, it dawned on me that he was just outshining me by a long way,” Dan continued. “I realized I needed to up my game a bit, because my 19-year-old boy was just incredibly authentic, effective, and strong-willed — always doing the right thing.”
Alex relished spending time with his loved ones, and he had an especially close relationship with his mother, Nicole.
“She would go anywhere with him,” Dan said, recalling that Alex and Nicole had gone to Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar concerts together. “That’s the kind of bond [they had]. She never, ever embarrassed him, no matter what she did… He was her best friend.”
“Every single day, multiple times a day, his mom would take a selfie with him,” said Malcolm Oakes ’28, Alex’s friend and teammate, recalling spending Thanksgiving with the Kemps. “[His family] really adored him, and I think that’s what shaped him into being such a great person.”
Members of men’s cross country at the College described Alex as an integral part of the team. “Alex was super supportive of everyone around him and also really confident in his abilities, so he immediately became a leader to the whole first-year class,” said Chuckie Namiot ’25, a co-captain of the team.
Dusty Lopez ’01, the team’s coach, said that one of his most striking memories of Alex came before Div. III National Championships last fall. As the team gathered to leave, all the men showed up in suits. Lopez initially asked a senior on the team if he had planned it, but was pointed to Alex instead. “He said, ‘Well, Alex had this idea and we all thought it was great,’” Lopez recalled. “It was something I had never seen just happen spontaneously. And the fact that this first-year had this idea and everyone was so on board — it’s really unusual and pretty amazing.”
Alex, Dan said, had been athletic from an early age — playing team sports such as basketball and baseball — but gravitated toward cross country in middle school.
“It surprised him how good he was,” Dan said. “It was the perfect blend of the ability to control your own destiny and push yourself to an extreme.”
Namiot remembered the effort Alex put into excelling in running. He particularly recalled when Alex charged to the head of the pack in his first collegiate race, even as he competed against more experienced runners.
“There were guys that he definitely wouldn’t have been expecting to beat, but he just immediately went to the front,” Namiot said. “The easy way to run that race would’ve been to just feel it out and sit in the back, [but] he really competed hard to the end. And he kept that up the whole season. Every workout, every race, he was putting 100 percent of his effort in.”
Despite his eagerness to compete, Dan said that Alex also saw cross country as a team sport. “[He and his teammates] ran every day together, and if Alex had a bad race, he would still be genuinely over the moon if the team won and his friends did really well,” Dan said. “He was such a team player. He never took the glory.”
Lopez credited Alex with playing a major role in what he described as “fearlessness” among the cross country team’s first years.
He said that, on the day of the team’s infamous annual run to the top of Mount Greylock at the beginning of the school year, Alex, Lopez learned later, had gone for another run earlier that morning. “I just thought, this is the kind of approach that helps people not be scared.” Lopez said. “It makes it fun. He just had a way of instilling that feeling.”
Alex’s friends and teammates at the College agreed that, although he was a stellar athlete — placing first among all first-years at nationals — he remained humble and hardworking.
“I was very injured in the fall and wasn’t able to train,” said Noah Stegmeier ’28, Alex’s roommate and a member of men’s track. “Alex was having all this success, but he would never boast about it. He [went] to cross country nationals and he [didn’t] tell me how it went, so I assumed it wasn’t up to his standards. [But when I asked], ‘Oh, how did it go?’, he was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I met my goal. I was number one freshman in the nation.’”
Namiot also spoke to Alex’s conscientious nature. “He was really self-assured, but one of the most humble people we had all met,” he said, recalling when Alex first visited the College after he was recruited to the cross country team.
“Most of the recruits are super shy when they have to introduce themselves,” he continued. “Alex stood up and he was so confident — just so excited to be here.”
Friends and family said that Alex felt particularly at home at the College. “He knew Williams was the right place for him,” Oakes said.
Teammates Oakes and Emil Nelson ’28 both recalled Alex reaching out to them before arriving on campus. “When we got to campus, he kind of knew everyone already — he had reached out to everyone,” Oakes said. “He connected us all together pretty well, and by the first day, we were all a big family.”
Stegmeier said he, too, became close with Alex and his family over a few short months. “I lucked out, because the second I got to campus, we just clicked,” he said. “When his parents came for parents’ weekend, we all hung out, and it just felt like a second family already.”
“It seemed like he had a bottomless social battery,” Nelson said. “He was always with people … [and] always wanted to go do something.”
“He was always smiling, always laughing, always having fun,” Namiot said. “When he was there, you knew you were gonna have a good time.”
Maia Wang ’26, one of Alex’s Junior Advisors, said that one of her fondest memories with Alex was of him knocking on her door late one night during a snowstorm.
“I opened my door and it was him and all his friends, and they threw snowballs at me into my room,” she said. “I didn’t know it was snowing outside, but it got me out, and we had this massive snowball fight.”
“[He was] like a younger brother to me,” Wang continued. “He knew how to have a good time and make people laugh, and didn’t take life too seriously.”
Nicole noted that Alex made meaningful connections quickly during his first semester. “I was lucky enough to spend time with them in Alex’s room [while Oakes] played guitar and the boys were talking about their future hopes and dreams,” she remembered of Oakes’ visit over Thanksgiving. “I could tell how much they trusted one another, had each other’s backs, and intended to be friends forever.”
Eli Welch ’28, another teammate of Alex’s, initially met him during Previews, when Welch hadn’t yet committed to the College. “He was already acting like I was a part of the team, and I didn’t even know that I was going to come to Williams,” Welch said. “But to him, I was already a part of the family, and that made me want to come here.”
Alex also stood out in the classroom. “Alex was the kind of student that makes teaching at Williams one of the best jobs in the world,” wrote Professor of Economics Dukes Love in an email to the Record.
“I remember him sitting in the back row of Griffin 6, with his messy hair and look of intellectual alertness,” he continued. “Whenever I would ask the class a question, I always knew that Alex had the answer, even if he would usually give others space to respond first. And indeed, he pretty much destroyed each of the exams in the class.”
“He really strived in all areas,” Nelson said. “He wasn’t afraid of new opportunities and went head-on and did everything so effortlessly and with such grace.”
Outside of running and academics, Alex was dedicated to his community, Dan said, recalling his son’s work at Jon Bon Jovi Soul Kitchen, a restaurant in Red Bank, N.J., that allows customers to either volunteer or pay what they can for meals.
Alex initially worked at the charity to fulfill volunteering requirements at his high school but decided to continue even after serving the requisite hours. “He’d go with his brother [Max] to volunteer just because he wanted to help and pay it forward,” Dan added.
“He had what I thought was perfect balance in his life,” Denzler said. “Anybody who had the privilege to know him was lucky.”