Giving Their Best From Hoopfest Spokane Family Delivers Diversions To Beleaguered East African Nation

Basketballs won’t fill their most pressing need.

Even a massive shipment of basketballs pales against the complexities of wants and needs in Rwanda, the tiny east African nation scarred by genocide and massacre.

But what’s taking shape in Spokane is good news to Rwandan people hungry for the diversion of sport.

What started as a willingness of a Spokane couple to meet a modest request for sports gear from their son in Rwanda is taking on the momentum of a movement.

Their theme is Hoopfest and Reconciliation Rwanda, and the ball is rolling.

Officials at Hoopfest - Spokane’s annual 3-on-3 street tournament - have agreed to donate 100 new basketballs for shipment to Rwanda, plus 215 more that will be used in the June 24-25 Hoopfest.

Their appeal is that every team in this month’s Hoopfest join in by sending a basketball to Rwanda, where a 36-year-old Gonzaga Prep graduate, Brad Rothrock, works with Catholic Relief Services.

It was Rothrock who recently asked his parents, Rocky and Lolly Rothrock of Spokane, to send athletic gear to a country emerging from civil war.

The bag of balls they sent was a hit.

Brad Rothrock asked for more of the tools of fun that are a part of life’s quality. His father, Rocky - formally F. Wallace Rothrock, Jr., of the Rothrock Company of Spokane - took the request as a challenge.

A self-described idea person, the senior Rothrock sees Spokane as a city with a history of rallying to charitable causes. Why not invite the players of this city to jump in?

If each team in Hoopfest were to kick in a basketball, or donate $7 to buy one from the Baden company through Hoopfest and its discount, more than 4,000 roundballs would go to Rwanda.

Rothrock’s inspiration prompted Hoopfest organizers to make room for a collection booth at Main Avenue and Wall Street that will be operational during the two-day competition. Basketballs new or used and cash donations for the purchase of basketballs will be accepted there, the elder Rothrock said.

The effort could have ended at that, but enthusiasm is contagious.

Details are yet to be announced, but the organizational force behind soccer - Spokane Youth Sports Association - has an ear out to help, Rothrock said.

Although the SYSA wants to participate in the background for now, Rothrock said, the potential is impressive.

Tying in soccer coaches, players and parents who number in the thousands would take this charity to a higher level. It could mean that soccer balls, T-shirts and shoes would go out with thousands of basketballs.

Rothrock said talks are underway with commercial and military air units to transport the cargo to Rwanda.

Brad Rothrock in Rwanda is impressed by the response.

“The situation here is enormously complex,” he said in a telephone interview from the Rwandan city of Kigali. “Every little effort can help. Sports has a great capacity to promote tolerance. Bringing people together on a basketball court or a soccer field can foster values.

“What is being initiated in Spokane will be tremendously well-received here.”

Breaking down barriers between rival factions - Hutus and Tutsis - will take generations, said Rothrock, a 1977 G-Prep graduate with master’s degrees in philosophy and international relations from Columbia University.

The devastation of the April 1994 massacres left a nation of survivors, and some perpetrators, dealing with a horrific past and the uncertainties of a future threatened by the re-arming of Rwandan refugees outside the country.

Brad Rothrock said, “While the pursuit of justice against those who perpetuated atrocities is essential, smaller gestures of reconciliation are crucial. Justice takes time.”

Filling time with sport is a proven force for change.

Americans and Chinese met over a pingpong table in the 1970s. Americans watched intently as the Soviet Union’s track and field athletes emerged as people in the early 1960s. Baseball opened the door to Jackie Robinson in 1947, and Robinson pushed back the covers of inequality.

“Meeting on a basketball court or a soccer field is a powerful way to break down barriers among people who often cannot even look at one another because the divisions are so deep,” Rothrock said. “How do you forgive somebody for wiping out your family? Many people have difficulty with the word reconciliation. They say justice must come before reconciliation, that houses must be built before reconciliation, that stolen goods must be returned before reconciliation.

“But there are so many things that can be done now - smaller steps to foster reconciliation.

“People are extremely poor, but such a huge response came in worldwide that inside the country, for the most part, there’s enough food. This is a beautiful country - spectacular, a land of a thousand hills. Right now it’s reasonably safe inside the country. The main threat is of the former army being re-armed.”

Nearly a year after the army - the Rwandan Patriotic Front - took Kigali, the country is moving from the emergency mode to rehabilitation and development, Rothrock said.

“In less than a year there’s a water system that works, electricity restored, and telephones.”

The phones are hit and miss. Rothrock said he tried a fax to Spokane this week before giving up after 30 attempts to get through. He faxed it to Geneva, for forwarding here.

As the rehabilitation of a country moves on, basketball and soccer become more popular with relief agency types and Rwandans alike.

“I play on a (basketball) team that’s a hodgepodge - we have Rwandans, a Jamaican, a guy from Trinidad, a Dutch player and two guys from the Bronx,” Rothrock said. “We split games with the army team. The rematch is (today). They have three or four guys 6-7 and 6-8.

“One guy here they call Jordan. He’s a 6-8 Tutsi who can shoot it. His shoes are so worn out that his soles flop around when he runs.”

Anybody got a pair of wide 14s? The Michael Jordan of Rwanda needs a little more sole.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo