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| Ambassador Moon speaking before the kickoff on Saturday in Sarajevo. |
On Saturday, June 23, the Sarajevo Spartans played the Sofia
Bears in the first American football game in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This
was only the second game for the Spartans, who went up against the more
experienced Bears with the assistance of referees from Serbia, where – I was
told – there are three leagues of about 30 teams.
The Spartans played with gusto, but nonetheless were soundly
beaten by the veteran Bears. Despite the summer heat, more than 100
energetic Sarajevans – not including the curious onlookers from the neighboring
Olympic pool – cheered on the Spartans. The Bears were backed by a vocal
contingent of Bulgarian soldiers from the EUFOR mission.
The Spartans are coached by expatriate Americans. The
club manager is a retired BiH military officer who spent time in the US for
training programs –- his son, the team’s quarterback, played on a high school
football team in Alabama. The manager has aspirations for eventually
developing five teams in BiH – the minimum number to form a league according to
the European Federation of American Football. He has heard that a team
may be in the formative stages in Brcko.
With this weekend’s historic step, a baseball league in BiH
is not farfetched, and who knows, one day we may even have the Balkans American
Football League! I can’t help but think that Sarajevo, with its
traditions of openness – not to mention the Olympics – is a fitting place for
this sport to be making a local debut.
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