Iranians in U.S. Find Something to Cheer About

La Bomba · Apr 13, 2009

As the National Basketball Association's regular season winds down, a cult hero has emerged on a last-place team with absolutely no chance of making the playoffs.

He's Memphis Grizzlies rookie Hamed Haddadi, a 7-foot-2 center and the NBA's first-ever player from Iran. Mr. Haddadi has appeared in only 13 games so far this season -- and rarely for more than a few "garbage" minutes late in contests Memphis has little hope of winning. Yet he has managed to become an icon to thousands of Iranian-Americans looking to sports as a relief from the constant tensions between their adopted country and their native land.

It's the climax of a whirlwind 10 months for Mr. Haddadi. Last summer, he led Iran to its first Olympic berth in basketball, then became the first player in NBA history to need a waiver from the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control to sign with a U.S. professional team (because of a decades-long trade embargo with Iran).

Bouncing between the Grizzlies and a minor-league affiliate in Bismarck, N.D., Mr. Haddadi has barely had time to learn the names of his teammates, much less how to navigate life in America. He's self-conscious about the adoration heaped upon him from legions of immigrant fans, all eager for the day when U.S. arenas rock to chants of "Who's Your Haddadi?"

"This year mostly I am learning to be a better basketball player," the shy 23-year-old says, speaking with the help of a Farsi interpreter. "Someday, maybe, I will act more as a liaison between our two countries."

Barred by the trade embargo from seeking commercial endorsements, Mr. Haddadi nonetheless has inspired Iranians abroad. Fans download images of his brief appearances on NBA courts. YouTube contributors, shooting bootleg video inside NBA arenas, chronicled the first point Mr. Haddadi sank in a professional contest (a foul shot, in Phoenix) and his first field goal from the floor (a short jumper, against New York's Knicks -- watch here).

"It was from the middle of the paint," says Askandar "Alex" Chitzasan, a Portland high-school student, who says he scours Yahoo Sports each day for glimpses of his Iranian idol.

"He played 18 minutes against Denver," adds Alex's older brother, David. "And there were two amazing blocks on Carmelo Anthony."

Live action draws throngs of the devoted, including Ramin Tabrizi, a student at Stoller Middle School of Beaverton, Ore. The 12-year-old joined dozens of Iranian-Americans at Portland's Rose Garden two weekends ago -- some paying as much as $120 each to witness Mr. Haddadi's Portland debut from the pricey Lexus Club level of the arena.

It was his second attempt this season to see his hero. In February, Ramin, 12, brought a classmate to the game, only to learn that Mr. Haddadi had been sent back to Bismarck just hours before tipoff. "I wanted to say to kids at my school, 'See? Persians can play this game, too,' " the seventh-grader explains. More solemnly, he adds: "They should know not everyone who comes from Iran is a terrorist."

Iranians, over a million strong in North America, began coming to the U.S. in significant numbers in the 1970s, before Iran's Islamic revolution and the break in diplomatic relations with Washington. Among the most educated of all immigrants, Iranians -- or "Persian-Americans" as many prefer to be called -- are one of America's wealthiest immigrant communities per capita, according to demographers who crunch U.S. census data.

They're also sports nuts. In Southern California, where the 2000 census recorded at least 150,000 Iranian-American households, Farsi-language radio station KIRN-AM airs a live sports-talk show on Monday nights. Until now, tennis star Andre Agassi -- the son of an Iranian immigrant who boxed for Iran's Olympics team -- has been the closest thing to an Iranian-American sports figure. For a while, Farsi-speaking broadcasters aired Los Angeles Lakers games on the AM dial.

"There's the football player, too, T.J. Houshmandzadeh," says Mayar Zokaei, a Los Angeles-based talent agent who has been advising Mr. Haddadi during his first year in America. "But he was raised by his [American] mother, and has no real ties to Iranian culture."

Despite their wealth and success in medicine, engineering and the sciences, Iranian-Americans chafe at more than 30 years of negative images of Iranians in U.S. media due to Iran's hard-line regime, which most expatriates oppose. Those images can make life hard for children of immigrants, as well as their parents.

"There's such a hunger here among Iranians to bridge the two cultures," says Mansor Chitzasan, a Portland engineer, who has twice tried to see Mr. Haddadi play in Portland. He and his sons are huge fans, especially after the father ran into Mr. Haddadi in Minneapolis earlier in the season, when the Grizzlies were in that city to face the Timberwolves.

Mr. Haddadi's extraordinary height attracted top trainers to hone his basketball skills when he was young, and he became a hoops prodigy in Iran, good enough to play professionally in Dubai while barely out of his teens. He emerged as one of the surprise stars of last summer's Olympiad in Beijing.

Even while Mr. Haddadi was toiling in the minors this season, hundreds of fans turned out for "Persian Heritage" promotions during the Grizzlies' West Coast swing. Unable to attend the games against the Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Clippers, Mr. Haddadi arranged to have packets of autographed photographs of himself in his Memphis uniform express-mailed to the arenas and distributed to his fans.

Finally, on the Grizzlies' last trip to Portland this season, his countrymen got their money's worth. For more than 12 minutes in the second half, Mr. Haddadi lived up to his billing, crashing down the court on his long legs and holding his own against a more experienced team. At 2:44 remaining in the third period, he hit one of two foul shots. Two minutes later he fed a short pass to a teammate Rudy Gay, earning an assist. With 23 seconds left in the period, he reached over former All-American Greg Oden for a tough rebound.

Although Memphis lost 86-66, Mr. Haddadi tied his till-then NBA career-best performance with seven points, playing hard until the final buzzer. The last Grizzly off the court, he lingered to slap palms with Portland's Sergio Rodriguez, cocking his head with a smile that indicated, "See you next year."

After showering and stopping by his hotel, Mr. Haddadi had one more appearance to make: a gathering at Portland State University for a celebration of Persian New Year, called Nowruz. Leaning wearily against a wall, the big man smiled graciously for photographs, signed autographs and politely declined trays piled with chocolates and other sweets.

As teenage girls hopped in delight, grandmothers cooed the diminutive, "Hamed-jan." Boys held up sneakers for their hero to sign. "We are all so proud of you, Hamed-jan," said one father with teary eyes.

On a rainy sidewalk near midnight, the rookie was looking forward to a few hours sleep before joining his team back on the road. "The Iranian people here have been so great," he said. "I only wish I could play more for them."
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Iranians in U.S. Find Something to Cheer About

La Bomba The Future

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Iranians in U.S. Find Something to Cheer About

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