FALL/WINTER 2021
Yalla Cougars!: The Return of IC Athletics
31
As the students of the newly minted American Boys School in Smyrna indifferently passed by the popular store where the list of events and enticing prizes for the school’s first ever “Field Day Athletics Sports Day,” were displayed, their headmaster, Alexander MacLachlan, was dismayed. The promise of a day filled with marbles, leapfrog, kite-flying, pole vaulting, running, tug of war, and sack races, garnered about as much excitement, it seemed, as a math test. A longtime athlete himself, MacLachlan was determined to foster a similar love of sports and competition in his students. He figured a field day filled with prizes was the perfect solution, but something was clearly still amiss. Ultimately, that field day did happen. Not only was the day itself a huge success, a lively event with 4,000 spectators from all over Smyrna and the surrounding suburbs, but it established a precedent for interscholastic competition in Turkey and the region. Inspired by its success, the Pan-Ionian Association of Smyrna began their own annual sports competitions. And just four years after MacLachlan’s first field day, the first modern Olympic games were held in Athens in 1896. A mere coincidence? Perhaps. Though, as MacLachlan states in his memoir, Potpourri of Sidelights and Shadow from Turkey, “We will leave it to the research experts of the future to trace back to its original source the modern little spring from which trickled the stimulating life spirit of athletic revival in modern Greece.” Fast forward 130 years, MacLachlan would likely be overjoyed to hear about how, from the ‘modern little spring’ in Ottoman Smyrna to present day Beirut, that athletic spirit has trickled into the souls of the 1000+ students who showed up for IC’s extracurricular sports tryouts this Fall and Winter. Today, IC’s robust athletic program, led by Omar Shmaitilly with the support of Karine Naji (Athletic CoordinatorRas Beirut) & Jennifer Chehade (Athletic Coordinator - AA), is beloved by its athletes and onlookers alike for its competitive nature and as a beacon of IC spirit. IC participates in eight different local leagues, as well as different national and international tournaments, and is recognized across the region as a very competitive, highcaliber program. During the 2019-2020 season, IC athletics were on a roll. The Boys Varsity Basketball Team won first place at a regional tournament in Izmir, and in March 2020, the JV Boys and Girls Basketball and Football teams traveled to Dubai and Greece for a NESAC (Near East Schools Activities Conference) tournament. They returned triumphant, with first place for girls football and boys basketball, and second place for boys football. In fact, this was the last time any team traveled, as panic around a well-known virus was quickly growing. It was the beginning of the end, Mr. Shmaitailly recalls.
