Background
Labissière was born in Portuguese-au-Prince, Haiti.
Labissière was born in Portuguese-au-Prince, Haiti.
Evangelical Christian School.
His basketball career began at the Collège Canado-Haïtien, a junior-senior high school in Portuguese-au-Prince, which participated in school championships organized by the Comité Interscolaire de Basket-ball Amateur (Chemical Industries Basel), and the Association de Basket-ball Interscolaire (Applied Science International). All three survived but were trapped under the debris for the next three hours. Skal"s legs were trapped, causing them to go numb and he was unable to walk for a few weeks after.
A few months after the earthquake, Labissière moved to the United States in Memphis, Tennessee to live with Gerald Hamilton who ran the Reach Your Dream Foundation, which brought international prospects to the United States.
Labissière attended Evangelical Christian School in Memphis and started to play varsity basketball as an eighth-grader. When he had first arrived, Labissière spoke little English and required a French interpreter in all of his classes.
After three to four months, he didn"t need the help and became fluent. In 2014, he left the school his senior year and enrolled at Lausanne Collegiate School, also located in Memphis, but because of the move he was ruled by TSSAA as ineligible to play basketball at Lausanne for the season.
So instead, Labissière played for Gerald Hamilton"s Reach Your Dream Preparatory Academy team, where he averaged 26 points, 12 rebounds and 4.5 blocks per game.
Labissière was rated as a five-star recruit and was considered among the best players in his class. He committed to the University of Kentucky to play college basketball. United Kingdom"s coach John Calipari, offered Labissière a scholarship before any other 2015 prospect and compares him to Anthony Davis.