DRESSED FOR SUCCESS
Noor Bazzi, a freshman shooting guard with the St. Clair College Saints women’s basketball team, is the first player in the school’s history to wear a hijab during games. Her high school coach says she’s “a force to be reckoned with” on the hardwood.
Noor Bazzi makes a statement every time she walks into the gym for a basketball game.
The hijab that covers her hair and the long sleeves and tights that hide her extremities will turn some heads.
Once the game starts, she turns a few more heads with her on-court talents.
“When she’s on, there’s nothing that can stop her,” said former Massey junior coach Paul Johnson, who saw Bazzi flourish into a three-time all-city player for the Mustangs. “She’s a force to be reckoned with.”
Now, the 18-year-old Bazzi is a freshman shooting guard for the St. Clair Saints in the Ontario Colleges Athletic Association and also the first St. Clair athlete to wear a hijab while she competes.
“It is surprising that it hasn’t happened before, given that we’re in a community that’s had Muslim basketball players for years,” Saints’ athletic co-ordinator Ted Beale said.
In 2001, the Star profiled Jenna Khalife, who wore a head scarf, long-sleeve shirt and warm-up pants while playing senior basketball for the Kennedy Clippers. Covering her body from public view is an important piece of Bazzi’s religion. There were several Muslim players similarly dressed on Massey’s roster, but she stands alone at St. Clair.
“It’s definitely different than Massey,” she said. “But my coaches and teammates haven’t treated me any differently, which is great. They see me as a basketball player.” That’s exactly what Beale and women’s head coach Andy Kiss saw when Bazzi attended a few of the Saints’ open workouts over the summer.
Each summer, St. Clair has a weekly open gym session for potential returning players and highschool players interested in playing at the post-secondary level. “We’re happy to pick up a player like that,” Kiss said. “She’s a dynamic scorer, she really has an acumen for scoring. She can manufacture her own shot, you don’t need to design something for her to score.” Kiss said Bazzi’s obvious talents flew under the radar a bit in that she played in the high-school league’s Tier II division and on a struggling travel team.
He had watched a few of her travel games and expressed interest in her joining the Saints a year ago but understood that Bazzi was considering returning for a fifthyear at Massey.
After a chat with Saints assistant coach Phil Milanis, Bazzi decided late in the summer to make the jump to college this fall.
“She potentially could start for us this year,” Kiss said. “Her skill set translates well into the OCAA.” The youngest of four, Bazzi comes from an athletic family. Her brother played hockey and baseball. Her two older sisters both played basketball in grade school but not high school.
“Once I played high school, I knew I wanted to play college,” she said.
When she was 10, a hijab became part of her uniform.
“It changed me in the best way possible,” Bazzi said. “I learned that being different is OK, different is always good. It made me get closer to my religion.”
She feels the stares when she walks into an unfamiliar gym, especially when she played an outof-town tournament with the Windsor Valiants travel team. It’s something she and former Valiants coach Nikki Vidakovic talked over and worked through. “I told her, at the end of the day, she’s a basketball player,” Vidakovic said. “I said people stare because you’re one of our best players. She’s not just a role model because she’s wearing a hijab, she’s a role model for everyone. She doesn’t have that worry about wearing it anymore.” Bazzi is happy to serve as a role model because of her religious conviction. “It’s great to be the first one for St. Clair,” she said. “It gives me a chance to inspire other girls and I’m 100 per cent OK with that.” Kiss said he sees “a very mature young lady who I think is embracing the idea that people on the outside may look at her as a role model. A lot of kids her age are not sure where they fit in or who they are. She’s very self aware, and innately, she has leadership qualities.”