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SportsUnited
WHAT:
On June 3, Sport 4 Peace/Global Sports Partners and SportsUnited of the U.S. Department of State hosted a basketball team made up of 10 Iraqi girls ages 14-16 and 3 Iraqi coaches. The team arrived in Washington, D.C. and spent the first week in the nation’s capital visiting local schools, a wheelchair basketball league, the Smithsonian, and a WNBA practice and game. On June 9, the team traveled to Knoxville, TN. and spent the next 10 days playing at two Pat Summitt basketball camps. The team will also toured the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, and hiked in the Smoky Mountains.
HOW:
In July 2008, Global Sports Partners/Sport 4 Peace traveled to Sulaimaniya, Iraq to conduct the first ever girls and women’s basketball training camp in nearly 35 years. Upon returning to Knoxville, GSP/S4P drafted a proposal to bring a team of aspiring Iraqi girls basketball players to the campus of the University of Tennessee to attend Pat Summitt’s Basketball Camp. After UT Women’s Basketball signed on to the idea, GSP/S4P traveled to the Washington, D.C. to meet with SportsUnited , the international Sports Programming Initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. SSportsUnited embraced the proposed project and agreed to partner with GSP/S4P. .
WHO:
The players were selected based upon a variety of factors: wide-ranging geographical representation, varying religious representation, middle to low socioeconomic status, and ages 14-16. Further, players were selected based upon leadership qualities, a positive attitude, and a spirit of solidarity.
WHY:
Since 1974, girls and women’s basketball in Iraq was no longer offered as an Olympic sport opportunity. Under Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi National Women’s Basketball Team was unofficially dismantled and the number of girls and women playing basketball diminished. In the mid 1980s, Saddam Hussein’s son, Uday Hussein, was appointed head of the Iraq Olympic Committee and “revived” the National Olympic programs. However, Uday committed horrific acts of torture and punishment for male and female athletes who did not placate his obsession to win. While men were burned, dragged by their heels across broken glass, and forced to repeatedly kick a concrete soccer ball, women were brutally raped and on some occasions family members were executed if they did not “give over” their girls for Uday’s sadistic pleasures. As a result, the vast majority of girls and women stopped playing sports altogether. GSP/S4P is committed to providing new, healthy, fun, and safe sporting opportunities for Iraqi girls and women. Following the “Iraq to America” project, GSP/S4P returned to Iraq in July to hold the second annual basketball camp for girls, women, and coaches.