Alums pursue peace via hoops

Playing for rival Lehigh in the mid-90s, Sean Tuohey suffered much at the hands of the men's basketball team. That suffering, however, was not in vain. A few years out of college, when Tuohey and brother Brendan started the nonprofit basketball-education organization that would become PeacePlayers International, they knew where to turn.

Sean Tuohey approached two of his former Tiger hoops opponents, Jesse Rosenfeld '97 and Jason Osier '97, about helping the organization.

"The Ivy League basketball community is very strong in New York," Tuohey said. "[Rosenfeld and Osier] seemed very excited. Since then, they've been guys we can count on."

PeacePlayers International began in 2001 as Playing for Peace, the brainchild of the Tuohey brothers. According to the organization's website, playingforpeace.org, the mission of PeacePlayers is "to use the game of basketball to unite and educate children and their communities." The program opened with camps in South Africa's racially divided Natal province and in the neighborhoods of Northern Ireland, where Protestant-Catholic tensions run high. Since then, PeacePlayers has expanded to Israel and Cyprus and is beginning to plan a domestic branch.

Rosenfeld and Osier have recruited regional managers and employees for PeacePlayers and, more importantly, helped immerse the organization in a bedrock of financial support in the New York area.

"Nonprofits fail because there's not a steady stream of money," Tuohey said. "I can't stress how important [fundraising] is to a nonprofit."

After meeting Tuohey in New York, the former Tigers have devoted themselves to spreading the word about PeacePlayers through grassroots efforts.

"There are a lot of Jewish people on Wall Street who have an affinity for the Israeli program," Osier said, "as well as people from all backgrounds who are interested in the organization."

In almost any other case, this would just be typical Ivy League networking — college buddies helping each other out. This project, though, is much nobler.

In South Africa, PeacePlayers set up shop in the only region where all four racial categories from the Apartheid era — Whites, Blacks, Coloreds and Indians — reside in large numbers. While apartheid is banned by law, in practice it still divides South Africa's children at school. Here, PeacePlayers perfected the formula it would apply elsewhere.

The organization's volunteers took the unofficial segregation and used it to their advantage. They organized schools into groups of four based on their dominant ethnicity and held joint practices to ensure that all participants were exposed to the full diversity of the new South Africa.

This, coupled with supplemental programs to promote tolerance, leadership skills and AIDS education. made PeacePlayers a tremendous success, reaching out to 25,000 children and building 45 basketball courts in the South African city of Durban alone. In Northern Ireland the program has been just as successful — if not more — enrolling over 17,000 Catholic and Protestant participants from a much smaller population.

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In 2005 the organization took its message to the most troubled region of the world, the Middle East. Hopes were high, but expectations were low.

Again, Sean knew where to turn. Rosenfeld played professional basketball for Rishon LeZion in the Israeli Premier League from 1999 to 2001.

"He provided a lot of the Israeli contacts," Tuohey said.

Since its inception, PeacePlayers: Middle East has made many strides. Working with the South African model, workers have paired Jewish and Arab towns in Israel proper and hosted numerous interracial tournaments. They've even made inroads into the West Bank in cities such as Jericho, but much remains to be done.

"Some towns are just too militant," Tuohey said. "We're just trying to build the infrastructure. The basketball will come later."

In the future, PeacePlayers hopes to take its message closer to home. Its next project is set for New Orleans.

"The place is starving for anything," Tuohey said.

Tuohey has also coordinated with Osier to plan an expansion into Syracuse, N.Y., and Charlotte, N.C. Expanding domestically, of course, will require capital. Fortunately, PeacePlayers knows exactly where to go for that.

"I spoke to Brendan [Tuohey on Wednesday]," Osier said. "I want to organize a formal fundraiser in New York for Wall Street people. They're looking for a 20-city rollout, and we're trying to generate sponsorship and excitement."

With old hoops combatants from Princeton and Lehigh having formed a potent alliance, the game of basketball is primed to continue promoting peace on a global scale.