How Basketball and the Internet Shrunk the World for This Coach

The Internet changed the world. It is no longer up for debate. There is no going back. When people see therapists to cure them of their computer addictions, you know the Internet Age has arrived.

The Internet changed my world, in a big way, with an assist from basketball. Or, vice versa. I suppose basketball changed my world with an assist from the Internet.

Today, I spent much of the morning emailing with a basketball coach in Iran about my book and youth basketball development (I hope divulging this information publicly does not lead to an invasion of privacy). Yes, while the US and Iranian governments squabble over wars, nuclear weapons and other big picture issues, I make friends with different people from different cultures in the name of basketball via the Internet.

Before college, I spent a year as an exchange student in Sweden. This was before I had heard of the Internet. I lived in a town that for some reason had a large percentage of immigrants and several very good pizza restaurants. I played on the club team in town and eventually coached a youth team. Nobody wanted to coach this team because it was primarily immigrants and most of the Swedes were still getting used to the influx of Bosnians, Croats, Serbs, Iranians, Syrians, Poles and others moving into the town.

I became friends with one of the kids and we'd walk home from practice. He was from Sarajevo. He wanted desperately to go back. He talked of his youth basketball team and how good they were and how they were now scattered all over the world or missing. He explained the conflict, which I then watched on CNN at my host family's house. Somehow, despite the conflict at home, our team had Bosnian, Serb and Croat players and we never really had any problems on the court. Basketball brought everyone together and the older kids who spoke English a little bit better helped me translate to the other kids who were busy learning Swedish, let alone English.

When I was a senior in college, I did not want to enter the work force. I realized early on that I am unemployable, and while my advisor suggested I become a consultant, neither of us knew exactly what a consultant did, why one would want to be a consultant or what in the world I would consult about. So, I searced the Internet. Found an organization called Hoops 4 Hope working in Cape Town, South Africa and Harare, Zimbabwe. Sent an email. Persistence everntually paid-off with two trips to Cape Town to teach basketball. One night, while waiting for my ride after leading a college basketball practice, a father started talking to me. We were at Cape Technikon, a university built in what was once District 6. He told me about the bulldozers rolling through and over the neighborhoods because the blacks were living too close to downtown. The blacks and coloreds were sent to separate neighborhoods and because he was much darker than his wife, they were separated. Before visiting South Africa, apartheid was only a word and a description of why South Africa was a bad place. After visiting, I learned the true essence of apartheid and what it really meant for someone living there.

Around the same time, at a basketball camp at the University of Utah, I met 10 kids from Lebanon. My only knowledge of Lebanon was from grade school when I somehow ended up with Lebanon as my country for a geography report. But, on my team (which also featured a girl from Wyoming as my best player), I had one of the kids from Lebanon, a kid who wore a different NBA superstar's jersey every day. We talked a lot. We kept in touch via email. After 9/11, he was one of the first people to email to make sure I and my family were okay. Again, just a coach and a player communicating despite conditions outside our control putting our home nation's at odds.

When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, I had just returned from coaching in Sweden. I had a player from Iraq on one of the youth teams I assisted. While the media gave their opinions on what the Iraqis were feeling, I emailed my former player to learn about her feelings, about how her family wanted Sadaam out of power, but how nobody wants to be invaded by someone else. She said her family was sad and her mom was in tears because they had family still in Iraq.

And, so it goes. In 2005, I learned about the Greek and Macedonian conflict, and the history of the region, by running a camp in Macedonia with 11 Greeks and 7 Macedonians. Who knew? My history teachers and CNN certainly failed to keep me abreast of this centuries old conflict as to the rightful heirs of Alexander the Great. But, the kids knew.

And it goes on. Fortunately, I've coached elsewhere (China and Ireland) and managed to coach players from dozens more countries (Senegal, Switzerland, Nigeria, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Iceland, Canada, Mexico, Curacao, Columbia and more). Through basketball, I've traveled the world and actually learned about other cultures, in a small way. And, basketball has brought me together with even more people, like the coach in Iran, via the Internet, to gain an even broader view of the world. Basketball is how I learned of a group in Kenya using basketball to fight Malaria and a group in South Africa using basketball to fight AIDS.

Basketball, and sports in general, is often trivialized in our complex, high achievers world. Many kids are encouraged to give up on their dreams to play ball in order to get better grades and go to a better college so they can get a better job. However, while the world falls apart at the seams and every day is marked with another grizzly incident reminding us of how much we hate each other for no real apparent reason other than some obvious or visible difference (race, religion), basketball brings people together. While certainly not color-blind, basketball is an equalizer, a safe haven, an environment where people from different backgrounds can mix and be socially accepted. And, if we can create more of these experiences, whether through basketball or via the Internet, maybe we can realize there is no reason for one to hate another just because they pray to a different god or their skin is a different shade. If people can get along on the basketball court, why not the rest of the world?