Pat Summitt’s Lasting Inspiration to Girls in Iraq

In Cover Stories by S. Heather Duncanleave a COMMENT

documentary about the impact of former Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt on young Iraqi basketball players could reach a national audience during the NCAA Women’s Final Four this year.

The film tells the story of how Summitt sent basketballs and video messages of encouragement to the first basketball camp held for girls in Iraq. Later, some the girls attended one of Summitt’s elite basketball camps for free. The experience inspired one of them, Khoshee Mohammad, to pursue her dream of becoming the first female basketball coach in her country. Sarah Hillyer and Ashleigh Huffman, the director and assistant director of the Center for Sport, Peace and Society at the University of Tennessee, have been producing the project on their own time.

The girls’ coach, Rizgar Raoof, is currently living in Knoxville as a grad student at the UT. He started a girl’s league called Sunshine in 2007 for girls ages 12-14 in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. At the time, there were only about five women’s teams in the country, he says.

Girls were excited to play, but often after practices began, an uncle or brother would stop them. “In the beginning it was like looking for water in the desert,” Raoof says.

With Sunshine, and later another league he founded in 2009, Raoof would visit his player’s homes repeatedly to reassure families. He provided transportation so the girls would not have to encounter men on the way to and from practice, and he required the girls to maintain good grades and help their mothers at home.

Summitt became involved in 2007 after Hillyer, who at the time was running a nonprofit called Sport for Peace, approached her about the basketball camp. It was equipped with four basketballs for 60 girls. Summitt donated Lady Vols basketballs for all the participants.

She also sent a video in which she spoke directly to the camera: “I know you take some risks in doing what you do, but don’t ever fear the risk. Go for the opportunity to learn and to become strong young women. We need strong women.”

As part of her academic research, Hillyer visited the basketball camp in 2008 and asked the girls to write their dreams on note cards. Almost all said they wanted to visit the United States, see a WNBA game, and thank “Ms. Pat” in person.

“They had no idea Ms. Pat was the most famous women’s coach in the country,” Hillyer says. “They just thought she was this nice woman who had all these encouraging messages for them.”

Summitt offered to host a group of the girls at her basketball camp, but they still needed visas and money to cover the trip. Hillyer approached the U.S. State Department, but officials said the region where the girls live, the Kurdish north, was not a diplomatic priority. A few weeks later, a State Department leader called back and asked, “Did you say Pat Summitt?” The department arranged for the girls, age 13 to 15, to come in 2009.

After Summitt’s coaching boost, Raoof says, his team won second place in Iraq in 2010. But an evening of talking to Summitt made Raoof’s coaching seem bigger than basketball. Hillyer says Summitt told him how much she respected what he’s doing to create an entire new generation of Pat Summitts in a country with no female leaders.

“It was like to see someone on a horse from far away,” Raoof tries to explain. “From closer, you see a very strong lady, and all of a sudden she puts you on the horse and she takes you away from this place.”

Raoof’s girls do more than play a game. They plant trees, recycle, and help people in need. “She made a model that we trust in ourself and we work hard to make other lives better,” Raoof says. “She put us on her horse.”

After Summitt was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2011, Raoof’s basketball league held a “We Back Pat” tournament in Sulaymaniyah. It’s clear from comments in early versions of the documentary that Iraqis did not understand the disease. (Many sent “get-well” wishes.) Hillyer says it’s not diagnosed in Iraq. “They just put people away who get old and ‘lose their minds,’ not understanding this is a disease and they’re not crazy,” Hillyer says. The tournament was an opportunity to introduce the concept, just as the Pat Summitt Foundation tries to spread Alzheimer’s awareness.

Hillyer and Huffman returned to Iraq every year to collect footage of the girls, saving up their own money for each interview or edit. “It’s been a slow personal project for us to do to honor Pat and tell her thank you,” Hillyer says. “We’ve seen the effect of a simple act of kindness of someone telling (these girls) they are strong women: How they became better students, more respectful, developed a point of connection with their dads.”

Hillyer and Huffman made the 45-minute film, in partnership of Oklahoma-based filmmaker Derek Watson, with the hope that it will be shown on ESPN, possibly during the Women’s Final Four.

Related Story:

Game Changers: How UT’s Center for Sport, Peace, and Society Empowers Women Around the World

S. Heather Duncan has won numerous awards for her feature writing and coverage of the environment, government, education, business and local history during her 15-year reporting career. Originally from Western North Carolina, Heather has worked for Radio Free Europe, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in London, and several daily newspapers. Heather spent almost a dozen years at The Telegraph in Macon, Ga., where she spent most of her time covering the environment or writing project-investigations that provoked changes such as new laws related to day care and the protection of environmentally-sensitive lands. You can reach Heather at heather@knoxmercury.com

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