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Imagine
that you’re a teenager with great basketball promise. You and
a dozen or so of your countrymen, some of whom share your ethnic
background and some of whom don’t, are trained so formidably
that you beat all comers, including the mighty United States, to
win a world junior championship. Then imagine that an ethnic war
intervenes, and you are suddenly forced to regard your friends as
enemies.
 Crossing
the Adriatic from Bologna, I stumbled upon Svetislav Pesic, the
coach of that 1987 Yugoslav Junior National Team, in the passport
line at Sarajevo Airport. Together we had a chance to revisit that
sobering story. Here coach Pesic broods on a sideline.To view an Emmy-nominated documentary short that recounts the bleak events sketched out here, directed and shot by Hoop Dreams filmmakers Steve James and Peter Gilbert and narrated by the author, click here. For an optimistic postscript to the story of the Boys of Bormio, click here.  EIGHT:
BOSNIA |
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You
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Big Game, Small World from
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