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Tuesday July 18, 2007

Northern Ireland Men Honored With ESPN's Arthur Ashe Courage Award

Trevor Ringland (left) and Dave Cullen (right) with actor Samuel L Jackson at the 2007 ESPY Awards (Gregg DeGuire)

By John Mooney

Two men who grew up on opposite sides of "The Troubles" and brought Protestant and Catholic children in Northern Ireland together to play basketball received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at The 2007 ESPYs, which aired on Sunday, July 15.

Trevor Ringland, a Protestant rugby star who played for Ireland in the 1980s, and Dave Cullen, a Catholic who grew up using basketball to escape from the realities of war, were honored along with the biggest names in sports at ESPN's annual awards show.

"This year the Arthur Ashe Award honors two men who refused to listen to those who taught them to hate and instead are courageously teaching hope and quietly working to unite a nation," said Maura Mandt, executive producer of The 2007 ESPYs. "Trevor and Dave have seized an opportunity to help children realize that their 'enemy' has a face that is just like their own. "

Both honorees saw firsthand what hate can do. Dave Cullen's father was killed during the Troubles, and he watched the police ransack his home on a daily basis and threaten his mother. Trevor Ringland saw the world from the other side. The son and grandson of policemen, he saw his father check under his car each day to make sure there wasn't a bomb, and knew that each time his parents said goodbye in the morning could have been their last time.

"We are trying to build a future that is different from past," said Trevor Ringland, a senior partner at Macaulay and Ritchie law firm and a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board. "The goal is to not keep children separate. PeacePlayers successfully brought people together. Parents allowed it to happen."

"There's still a lot of hurt. We have had a tremendous cycle of conflict for the past 30-40 years," continued Ringland, an active member of the Ulster Unionist Party.

"There's still a lot of sectarianism even in the very young. Breaking down the barriers is grinding work."

"Politicians are sitting together, but that doesn't suddenly change people. They don't suddenly like each other," said Dave Cullen, an administrator at Queens University in Belfast. "The Peace process can break down again. Memories are long and there is a lot of hurt. Our motto is if we can teach them to play together, they can learn to live together."

PeacePlayers International-Northern Ireland uses the game of basketball to address sectarianism and foster mutual respect and tolerance by enabling Catholic and Protestant children ages 10-14 to play the game together. Basketball, unlike traditional sports in Northern Ireland, is not affiliated with either community. By competing together on mixed teams on a regular basis, children from these historically divided groups are discovering common ground and forging new friendships. Prejudices are being overcome by the desires to play, have fun and win.

Since August 2002, PeacePlayers has:

Established weekly school twinning sessions in which entire classes of children from 100 Protestant and Catholic schools play basketball in an inclusive environment
Held 10 tournaments and coached 17,000 ten to 14-year-old children in integrated settings
Partnered with Ulster Basketball to established cross-community basketball clubs in Belfast, Claudy, Limavady, Dungannon, Armagh, Cookstown, Craigavon, New Buildings, and Derry
Trained 40 local young adults from both communities to be coaches and youth mentors
Partnered with the Institute for Conflict Research to assess the twinning curriculum and junior basketball club development

PeacePlayers-Northern Ireland receives support from Anglo-Irish Bank, Awards for All, LLoyds TBS Foundation, The American Ireland Fund, and local town councils.

PeacePlayers International was founded in 2001 on the premise that "children who play together can learn to live together." It uses basketball to unite and educate children from different religious, racial, and cultural backgrounds in historically divided areas, including Northern Ireland, South Africa, Cyprus, and the Middle East. The organization's four main objectives are to bridge social divides, develop future leaders, educate children to lead healthy, constructive lives, and build community involvement to ensure long-term sustainability.

PeacePlayers' programs attract children to participate in basketball and life-skills activities that enable them to learn leadership skills and how to live as friends and neighbors. A key component to the organization's effectiveness is that its programs target children ages 10-14. These are the children old enough to pick up the basics of the sport, but young enough wherein many prejudices have not yet been cemented.

Both men were recruited by Brendan and Sean Tuohey of PeacePlayers International to enable children from the divided communities of Belfast together through sport. In January, they worked to create a basketball mixer, or "twinner," that brought together children from two schools caught in perhaps the ugliest crossfire of the conflict: Holy Cross Catholic school and Wheatfield Protestant school, which are separated by just 30 feet. After heated debate, a threat from parents of a blockade and difficult negotiations, the event took place on April 3rd with 10-year old girls - Protestants and Catholics alike - having fun and learning basketball.

"Trevor and David exemplify the power of sport to unite, inspire and transform. Their work with PeacePlayers International is breaking down legacies of hatred and mistrust between Catholics and Protestants," said PeacePlayers International's Executive Director Brendan Tuohey. "We believe that there is hope in divided regions around the globe and that it lies with young people."

Opportunities for Change

"The mistake we made in past is that those who hate the most to determine what the rest of us do," said Ringland. "I think one of the reasons politics changed so quickly is that the community moved ahead, and the politicians played catch-up. People want this to happen, to have opportunity to become friends."

"One Loyalist from a hard area told me, 'I don't want a relationship with that community, there's too much baggage. But I want my children to have one,'" Ringland explained.

"That was such an honest statement," Cullen added. "When ESPN let us stand up and acknowledge the work that's been done, we couldn't ask for better platform. We presented a challenge to the athletes of the world and told them they have an obligation to help organizations such as PeacePlayers. In a few weeks, Jason Kapono, winner of the 2007 All Star Game three-point competition, and Brent Barry of the champion San Antonio Spurs are coming over."

Since 1993, the ESPY Awards have gathered top athletes and celebrities to recognize major sports achievements and salute outstanding performances. Other honorees included NFL stars LeDainian Tomlinson, Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts, Tiger Woods, and tennis stars Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova. The event was hosted by late night comic Jimmy Kimmel and basketball superstar LeBron James at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre.

Past recipients of the Arthur Ashe Courage Award include to a group of female soccer players who are spreading the sport in Afghanistan, Muhammad Ali, Billie Jean King, Pat and Kevin Tillman, and Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett and Jeremy Glick, four passengers who lost their lives September 11 on United Flight 93.

To find out more about Trevor Ringland, Dave Cullen, and PeacePlayers International, read the July 16th issue of ESPN The Magazine.

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