Sidelined by the NBA? Benched by the Seattle SuperSonics? Not to worry. Now there is Petrochimi. Or Saba Battery. Basketball is gaining popularity in Iran, with help from imported players. Foreign players, mostly from the US whose hoop dreams are not realized at home, are descending on the fledgling Iranian circuit to play basketball. Garth Joseph, Andre Pitts, Eddie Elisma are among some twenty Americans who play pro-basketball in Iran. They are paid paid between $60,000 – $200,000 to help popularize a game which lags behind soccer, wrestling and volleyball on the Iranian sporting scene.
The biggest adjustment the Americans have to make is getting used to the lack of night life, parties, beer and bacon. Iran’s straight laced Islamic society frowns upon all four – at least in public. But the players have discovered that things are not as bleak as they appear. Almost everything is available – behind closed doors and for a price.
TEHRAN, IRAN – Making himself as inconspicuous as a 7-foot-2 black man can be in Iran, Garth Joseph sidled up to the store counter. His air was at once playful and furtive. "Give me that good stuff," he whispered. The clerk, a bespectacled woman dressed in a black head scarf, reached under the counter and brought forth a slab of pork: It was black-market bacon, absolutely illegal in the Islamic Republic of Iran and priced like the contraband it was.
"Fifteen dollars for bacon!" Joseph squawked, reaching into his sweats for his wad of green Iranian currency. "It’s so much money, but I love bacon. I eat about two pounds of bacon a day in America."
About 20 Americans play hoops for a living in Iran. They nurture pro careers that might not exist in the States, navigate a culture that offers precious few diversions in public — though a lot more behind closed doors — and, as much as possible, avoid politics. For offshore ballplayers working for a paycheck, Iran is just another stop on an international circuit that quietly counterbalances the NBA’s burgeoning import of players.
"One of my friends — he’s really like a caveman — he says, ‘Are they walking around with AKs?’ " said Andre Pitts, a Texan from Seguin, who plays point guard on the same team with Joseph, Saba Battery. "I said, ‘If you came here, you wouldn’t ever want to go back, the way they treat you.’ "
"It’s like being at a camp," said Eddie Elisma, a New York native drafted in 1997 by the Seattle SuperSonics and now a Petrochimi team leader. "It’s not as bad as you think."
In fact, inside a private home, life in Iran can be exactly the opposite of the public image. In Joseph’s six months in Tehran, his most striking discovery has been the nation’s double life. He first noticed it during Ramadan, the month when observant Muslims fast during daylight hours.
"They eat," Joseph declared. "They don’t eat in public, but they eat".
About two weeks after arriving, he was invited inside an apartment in the prosperous, generally liberal area north of Tehran.He watched as female guests arrived and peeled off their cloaks. "Nice miniskirts," Joseph said, smiling at the memory. And behind closed doors, the liquor flowed freely.
The players say the primary risk to living in a country run by conservative Muslim clerics is being bored to death. But such strictness has its upside. "It prolongs my career," Pitts said, recalling the night spots of secular Syria, where women sometimes danced on the bar. "I’m getting good rest."
Accidental Blogger 
3 responses to “Bacon, Beer and Basketball – in Tehran”
If this is the life they pursue, let them do so. However, the downside is that they are people kids look up to and all they got to spout about is bacon, money and girls. Its rather shallow really.
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This is so true for other Middle Eastern countries too, including Saudi Arabia. People often forget that religion is politics use to prolong one’s rule. Recently in first election Bush also used religious backing to come to the power.
The other argument which conservative gives to take away one’s rights to party is high rate of sexual activity in the west. We all know this single mother thing (kids outside marriage) is out of control now. It has become full fledge care for many. I mean who needs an education or career when one can earn money just by giving birth to few kids.
I know this out of hand but power make you do things which our simple minds can’t comprehend. We go to war and kill others just to keep hold to it.
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I love basketball apart from skateboarding its my favourite sport and its great to see it rise up again, hopfully ill get a saba kit! But the lives of the american basketball players arnt our concern this is usual for americans bacon beer and girls you see it everywhere in USA but their keeping it private which is good so it dosnt give and bad reflect to the younger generation of Iran.
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