Hooman's Story

Mike Bianchi
SPORTS COMMENTARY
August 10, 2008

Seven words nearly ruined his life.

Seven stinking words.

“Hey, Dikembe, you look like a monkey!”

“I never knew seven words could lead to so much ugliness,” says Hooman Hamzehloui.

You probably don’t recognize the name; you just know him as the racist fan who was banned by the NBA and the Orlando Magic for a full season after a heckling incident two years ago.

This is a story about how the worst night of Hooman’s life turned into the best thing that ever happened to him. It’s a story about how his heckling and harassing words turned into inspirational and invigorating ones. It’s a story my old high school coach would have loved because he used to tell us this about the game of football and the game of life: “You’re going to fall. Just make sure you fall forward.”

Hooman has certainly done that since the transcendent moment in October 2006 when he transformed from obnoxious heckler into a motivational speaker.

Two years ago, Hooman owned a big-time real estate company, four luxury cars and an opulent home in a gated Windermere community. He was high-rolling Magic fan, held in such high regard by the team that he was chosen to host a season-ticket selling party for other well-heeled corporate types. Magic players and officials attended the party.

“One of the greatest nights I can ever remember,” he says.

Just 24 hours later, he would endure the worst night he could ever imagine. He attended the Magic’s home game against Houston and sat in his usual seats on the front row right by where the visiting team comes onto the court.

He says he never drank or cursed at games, but he was a master heckler who always peppered opposing players with derisive nicknames. When Atlanta’s Josh Childress would come to town, Hooman always called him “Urkel” because of his resemblance to the geeky ’80s sitcom character. And when there were dead times during games, fans around him would urge Hooman to stand up and start his heckling act.

Like so many sports zealots, being a wacko fan became his alter-ego, his release, his fix. But everybody knows a fix can destroy you if you don’t control it.

“Hey, Dikembe, you look like a monkey!”

When those seven words came out, everything changed. In two seconds, he went from good-natured heckler to hate-filled racist. Dikembe Mutombo, a 7-foot-2 black man from the Congo, gave Hooman the finger and had to be restrained.

Hooman was escorted away, but he thought he’d be back the next game. He never dreamed he’d be banned for a year and become the poster child for racism in sports.

Maybe it’s a cultural divide (Hooman was born in Iran and came to this country when he was a kid), but to this day Hooman claims he didn’t know “monkey” was a racially offensive term.

“I had no idea why everybody was so upset,” Hooman says. “I was just trying to have some fun with Mutombo.”

But the fallout was heavy and immediate. The NBA, coming off the infamous Detroit-Indiana brawl between fans and players, was cracking down on unruly fans. And even though Hooman immediately issued a written apology, the NBA banned him for a season.

“I take full responsibility for what I said,” Hooman says now, “even though I really didn’t know what I was saying.”

He got death threats and hate mail. Friends quit calling. His two young children came to him and said, “Daddy, what did you say to Mutombo?”

His business went into the toilet even more so than most real estate businesses. Word got around. There was one anonymous comment posted on a real estate Web site urging buyers not to use Hooman as a realtor because he is “scam artist, a racist and an Iranian who . . . sends his money to fund terrorism.”

“I felt like I had become public enemy No. 1,” Hooman says.

With his reputation destroyed, he endured months of depression, spending most of his time sleeping in bed or lying on the couch.

Then one day, after a friend urged him to read a motivational book, he decided he would turn the biggest negative he has ever faced into the biggest positive. He’d always wanted to be a motivational speaker, but he never had the guts to try. Until now.

Prisoners, school children, corporate executives — he’ll talk to anybody who will listen. He has a motivational Web site, www.HoomanCan.com. He’s finishing a book — Mutombo and Me — about his life-altering experience and says he will donate a big portion of the proceeds to Mutombo’s foundation, which was set up to improve health care and fight disease in the Congo.

“I’m glad the incident happened,” Hooman says now, “because I feel better about my life than I ever have.”

Helping instead of heckling.

Inspiring, not inciting.

Maybe it’s time to move past those seven ugly words and remember seven more beautiful ones that we should all make part of our vocabulary.

“To err is Hooman,” somebody wise once wrote, “to forgive divine.”

Mike Bianchi

www.HoomanCan.com

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