He played for Rainbow Stars, Tomacan Stars, played in the Middle League, played for Black Meteors (the National Under 23 team), competed in the West African Football Union (WAFU) Championship in 1979, joined Prestea Mine Stars, called to Black Stars (National Senior Team) in 1981 and joined Kumasi Asante Kotoko in 1982.

Again in 1982, he played with the Black Stars at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Libya where Ghana won the fourth AFCON title. In 1983, he was a member of the Kotoko squad that won the African Clubs Championship. He became the club’s Vice Captain in 1985 and the Captain in 1988, the same year that he was appointed Captain of the Black Stars. He played in the Black Stars squad that featured at Senegal '92 and retired from the Black Stars in the same year. In 1993, he retired from from Kumasi Asante Kotoko,

Again in 1993, he was appointed Kotoko Assistant Coach and became the Interim Head Coach in 1996. That same year, he attended a coaching course in the UK. In 1999, he was appointed Black Stars Assistant Coach and received a state award, the Grand Medal for Sports award in 2008. He was again appointed Black Stars Assistant Coach in 2008 and became the interim Black Stars Head Coach in 2011.  He was given additional responsibilities to coach the Black Meteors and guided them to win the gold medal at the All-Africa Games in the same year.

In 2012, he was appointed Black Stars coach and qualified Ghana for the 2013 AFCON.  He again coached the Black Stars to qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup but the Club was eliminated in the group stage although their match against Germany was voted by FIFA as the Best Match of the tournament. That was not all, he was ranked the 32nd Best Coach in the world by FIFA and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Psychology by the Day Spring University, Mississippi, USA.

Again, in 2012 and 2014, he was named Coach of The Year and Sports Personality of the Year respectively, by the Sports Writers Association of Ghana (SWAG).  It didn’t end there. The Global Media Alliance named him the Most Influential Person in Ghana.

Between 2014 and 2017, he was appointed Al Khartoum Head Coach and came back to the Black Stars as a coach in 2017 until early 2020.

This celebrated man is James Kwasi Appiah. He has penned down his experiences and achievements in a book titled “Leaders Don’t Have to Yell”, a 400 paged book which he co-authored with Kyei Amoako, a marketing and communications consultant. 

In a Foreward to the book, Kwabena Yeboah, a Sports Journalist and President of the Sports Writers Association of Ghana, writes:

“When I met Kwasi Appiah in 1982, my instincts suggested that I had met a real gem of a person because he was different in many ways. He had an unassuming nature and displayed an utter lack of pretence. He exhibited a let-it-all-hang-out honesty and proved to have a highly-relatable personality. Additionally, his humility and prodigious talent suggested that he was destined for greatness.”

This is what Kwasi Appiah himself said about why he wrote the book:

“I realise that very few people have had the opportunity to walk the path that my life has taken. Very few people have risen to the position of responsibility that my professional life has provided me. As a result, I have seen things that only a few people have seen; I have had experiences that only a few people have had; and I have perspectives that only a few people have. Until now, the stories about the things I have seen, the experiences I have had and my perspectives on issues have been shared with only a relatively small group of people. So, as I thought about what purpose a book from me will serve, I became convinced that the time to commit my experiences and ideas into writing is now.”

Kwabena Yeboah hopes that every Ghanaian and every African will take time to read the book, and get to appreciate Kwesi Appiah’s thoughts on the future of Ghana’s football.