Tarique Mustafa American Sports in the Middle East
Tarique
Mustafa
Into
to the Modern Middle East
Digital Media Assignment
Sadiq Abdullah Azad is a young
misunderstood boy from the United Arab Emirates. He grew up in a small city
called Hamim where he lived with his father, mother, and two older brothers in
a small apartment built for no more than two people. His father worked as a
construction worker for a local company, his older brothers worked as daily street
merchants-where they sold daily items in the streets- and his mother was an
everyday housewife. Thanks to everyone in his direct family, Sadiq was able to
focus on his studies with food in his stomach, clothes on his back, and a roof
over his head. Growing up in the UAE, Sadiq had a good
amount of free time to play with his friends outside of his apartment complex.
Since Sadiq was at the age of six,
he and his best friend Youseff would play soccer outside in a dirt patch using
two trash cans as goals. From age six to ten, soccer was Sadiq’s entire life. He
would wake up at the crack of dawn, play until the start of school, play again during
recess, and play until his mom yelled “dinner” after
school. However, while all children were wearing Barcelona and Real
Madrid jerseys, Sadiq wore a worn down Tom Brady
jersey his father had bought him on a trip to the United States when Sadiq was an infant. That Tom Brady Patriots jersey
brought Sadiq many bullies and questions on why he loved such an American
sport. The things people didn’t know about Sadiq was that he idolized Tom Brady
and watched every single one of his games since the age
of five. The way he would dropback and just launch the ball to his receivers,
his footwork after the ball snap, and his unbelievable football IQ were just
some of the things Sadiq fell in love with. The 2004 season where Tom Brady led
the Patriots to defeat the Carolina Panthers was the first time he saw a
football game on live television. And ever since then he has not missed a single
game where Tom Brady has started.
Growing up in the UAE being an
American football fan was hard for Sadiq. The constant torture of being an
outsider, the picking on he suffered from the older boys in the town, and especially the disgrace his parents received for raising a “traitor”
who is not passionate about his motherland’s sport. But none of these
things phased Sadiq or his family. They persevered through all the hate, and
God rewarded them in a special way.
In 2008 the Patriots lost in the
Super Bowl, but Sadiq and his family would win one of the biggest
accomplishments of their third world country. His family won the Green Card
lottery. They moved here to New Jersey on April 19th, 2008. Now that
Sadiq was in an environment that supported his choice of sport, he was able to
walk around freely with who he was. He could proudly say that he was a fan of,
what they call in America, football. However, with being a Patriots fan came a
burden he was unaware of. Being a ban-wagoner, a front-runner, even a fake-fan.
None of what his new peers would say would affect his love for Beady and the
Patriots. And after a few years when people realized he was actually a true fan
of the Patriots, since he was a child in another country, they eased up on all
the trash talk towards him.
All in all, who would have though
the only boy in a small city of Hamim would eventually come to the place of his
solitude. He told me, “I was so young at that point I had thought my whole life
was a movie.” This is what Sadiq told me when I asked him what he thought the chances of all these fortunes
coming true. I think we can all infer this beautiful situation can be thanked to
God himself. From what we see, a young boy fighting against bullies and
adversity just took all the shots towards him and stayed positive. It is a
miracle of what sports can do to the youth of the world. It also shows how many
people in other countries are unaware of American sports, but can be helped by
this idea of being him/herself while having their own interests.
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