Lana Oudat had played basketball throughout her childhood and once was invited to participate in the Syrian national team camp. She spoke with basketball coach Lester Butler Jr. and intended to join the team in 2014. That’s when Brown barged into the offi ce and, after speaking with Butler, offered the student a spot on her new team. “I didn’t know what lacrosse was,” Lana Oudat said. “I went home and I Googled it.”
O COMING BACK
Bassel Oudat called his family from Syria to deliver the news. Lana and Yara Oudat’s childhood home, a two- bedroom apartment in Mazze, had been destroyed by a rocket attack. Local press suggested the attack targeted their father. The rocket blasted through the girls’ bedroom, where images of their childhood lined the pink walls. It toppled the
library, which included a collection of horror stories and comic books Yara read as a young girl. The only items that remained intact were Lana’s athletic medals, which were stored in a box inside the collapsed closet in her bedroom. The home — equipped with a living room, kitchen and balcony — was no longer livable. “On one side, I was angry because we lost our house and our stability,” Bassel Oudat said. “On another, I was happy because Lana and Yara were far away. They will not see their memories being destroyed.” Still, Lana felt the ramifi cations from across the globe. “My fi rst action was to make sure [my father] was OK,” Lana Oudat said. “He sent us photos of it, and I felt really sad. I started crying. It’s all my memories in there.” After the rocket attack, Bassel Oudat decided to fl ee to Paris. Lana and Yara, who came to America on visas with the hope of returning to Syria, had to fi nd a school quickly with no home to which they could return. Lana Oudat, who had already completed three years at the University of Damascus, narrowed her search to local schools like Maryland, Catholic, Howard and UDC. Application deadlines had passed for the fi rst three. She decided to study architecture at UDC and work in the athletic department to help pay for school.
Soon she loved lacrosse. She wanted her sister to play. “I had no idea what she was talking about,” Yara Oudat said. “She’s talking about this game where there are sticks, and it’s like dribbling in basketball. She showed me videos.” Brown, who loved the younger sister’s 5-foot-11-inch frame, told Yara Oudat she would teach her how to play. UDC fi nished 0-12 in 2015, the lone season the Oudats would play together. But it was never about winning games. The Syrian sisters found respite in a most unlikely sport.
THE LACROSSE EFFECT
It’s not hard to pick Yara Oudat out at a UDC practice on a rainy morning in late April. She towers over her teammates. Maybe that’s why she — the girl who would always ask her father for the newest basketball shoes — played center at Syrian National School when she was younger. Yara Oudat runs on the wet turf at Woodrow Wilson High, a public school sandwiched between neighborhoods in northwest Washington, D.C. She switches between white and black pinnies, playing offense and defense. Her sister, Lana, watches from the sideline before leaving for work at Marshall Moya Design, where she is a project designer. She hugs Brown goodbye.
“Neither one of them complain,” Brown said. “It’s unreal to me that their mother has raised two successful, independent women. She has kept this family together through so much, and both of them are succeeding in their own ways.” Yara and Lana Oudat have found their way in America, and they have lacrosse to thank. The sport allowed them to pursue an education and forget, maybe just for 60 minutes, the turmoil from which they escaped four years ago. “Lacrosse helped me move forward and just love being here,” Lana Oudat said.
They still hope to go back home one day when the violence stops and Damascus returns to what they knew — the city where Lana Oudat would say hello to employees at the supermarket, Assa Hani, under her father’s apartment and where Yara Oudat, a computer science major, learned to love computers at the local arcade.
Not to mention, they want to see their father again. “I would love to see them play one day,” Bassel Oudat said. The Oudats want to bring a piece of what they’ve learned back to Syria. That might include lacrosse. “Is it going to pick up in Syria? I don’t know,” Yara Oudat said. “I hope it would. People would be excited to learn a new sport."
Lana Oudat (No. 9), with her mother Lama, far right, and sister, Yara, behind, on the UDC lacrosse team’s senior day in April 2015.
38 LACROSSE MAGAZINE » June 2016
“I’m going to bring sticks with me and teach them,” Lana Oudat said. “I need to play there. They need to learn." Lana and Yara Oudat say lacrosse gave them peace of mind. If it can do the same for others in Syria, it might be worth trying.
A Publication of US Lacrosse
©UDC
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