Sulaimani's Flying Eagles
Staff blog by Shad Rashed (IT team) and Ahmed Ali (IRIS Fellow)
Something quite extraordinary happened this year on the campus of the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS). It has to do with the school’s soccer team, the Eagles, and the example it set for social harmony and athletic dominance. The Kurdistan Region and Iraq are by no means new to soccer. The reality is the complete opposite. Soccer is the daily obsession of millions here. Games between the global powerhouses of Barcelona and Real Madrid, known as the Classico, can bring life in Sulaimani to a grinding halt. The outcome of those games does not only determine your mood for the week, it also earns the winning team’s fans unending bragging rights. We speak out of experience.
One of us is a Real Madrid fan and the other is a Barcelona fan. In this context, a group of AUIS students from different ethnic backgrounds joined forces every week with a common purpose and one commitment: win games and get better regardless of the country’s tense political situation and lack of ethnic reconciliation.
The AUIS Eagles this year were about diversity and leadership. The players hailed from different areas and places big and small. They were from Sulaimani, Erbil, Dohuk, Baghdad, Mosul, Hillah, Kirkuk, Halabja, and Chamchmal. Elsewhere in the region, this productive diversity is difficult to assemble once, let alone consistently and over a long period of time. The players came from different academic backgrounds as well. Most were from the AUIS undergraduate program but we had younger players from the AUIS Academic Preparatory Program (APP). You could not notice that difference on the field. In every practice and every game, our players showed us that diversity can deliver. Their athletic talents are abundant. The difference-makers were the leadership potential, competitive spirit, and selfless winning desire. Any coach would dream to have one of these attributes characterize their players. Our job was easy because our players exhibited all of these. Throughout the season, the players organized the games themselves, picked each other up when injured, and took it upon themselves to improve. By the end of the season, all we had to do was put the lineup together and sit back to watch the players become a cohesive unit on the field. Illustrating this chemistry is our end of the season streak of four consecutive wins.
We are proud and commend the players’ maturity. Our gratitude goes to them for their efforts and open-mindedness. We are certain the team will be back even stronger next year to maintain Eagle Pride. We would like to thank our supporters who attended games and supported the Eagles. We invite them to come back next season to be loud and proud fans.
The Eagles have great potential in the making. This is going to be clear in the years ahead not only on the soccer field. It will be evident in any professional field the players choose after they graduate as well. This is certainly due to the AUIS education and the values it instills in its students. Importantly, though, it has to do with our players’ personal tolerant worldviews.
Shad Rashed and Ahmed Ali are the coaches of the AUIS soccer team. They would like to thank Oliver Keels and Mina Bassam from the Student Services Department for their support throughout the season.
