The weeks leading up to a new season can be equal parts long and taxing for a coach, especially one taking the reins for the first time. For Rafi Olmassakian, the pressures of taking the helm at Belfast Star in the men’s Super League aren’t so much a pressure as an escape.
For him the couple of hours spent on court with his team make for a brief but welcome respite from the worries he harbours for parents stuck in Lebanon as the country absorbs the ferocious military strikes directed its way by Israel.
Lebanese officials said that, as of Tuesday, over 550 people, including 50 children, had been killed by Israeli strikes this week. Thousands are fleeing the southern part of the country with schools being used as makeshift shelters from the violence and the chaos.
Monday was said to be the deadliest day in Lebanese history since the end of the civil war in 1990 with claim and counterclaim, as well as military ordnance, being exchanged across the border that separates the countries.
Olmassakian knows how it feels to be caught up in the middle of such violence having barely survived a rocket attack as a 12-year old in a town close to Beirut and one that left him and his brother peppered with shrapnel.
He told the Belfast Telegraph last year about how snipers’ bullets would kick up the dust around their feet as they played football in wasteland. And about how a friend of his was killed when their apartment block was struck by 11 rockets.
His father is Lebanese-born of Armenian origin so, unlike his mother with her Polish-German background, he has no European Union passport and, because of that, they are unable to just up and leave the current conflict zone for safer climes.
“It is not good and I am worried a lot. I’ve got a brother who is in Cyprus if something is needed and he can get there but as of [Monday] the airport has not been functioning well. All the airlines have stopped flying there and their prices are crazy.
“There are things happening but I don’t want to get into politics because politics is not my thing,” he explained at the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght. “My thing is basketball, but it is what it is. It is worrying but I hope nothing happens.”
The issue is complicated again by the fact that both of his parents have had open-heart surgeries. His father needs a pacemaker and there are no pacemakers to be had in Lebanon right now. It’s because of this that basketball is an escape.
Olmassakian moved to Belfast just over 18 months ago with his wife Sarah, who is from the city, and their daughter Ciara. The family arrived in January, from sunny Cyprus, so it took some time for dad to come to terms with an Irish winter and settle.
Sarah’s family helped with that. So did Belfast Star and not least Bill and Neal McCotton, a father and son duo whose influence is stitched through the club. Another was Adrian Fulton who served as senior head coach for six years through to the end of last season.
Olmassakian, who has coached in Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus and Greece, served as assistant to Fulton last term and uses the words ‘family’ and ‘community’ when referencing the club more than once when telling his story.
That collective embrace has been all the more apparent to him since the Israeli assaults on Lebanon and in the manner in which his players have rallied around. “They ask me every single night how I am and my family.” When he enters the building for training it feels like he is walking into “my own home” and he will take charge for the first time in a competitive game when they welcome Energywise Ireland Neptune to Newforge Sports Complex on opening night early next month.
“Of course there are big shoes to fill after Adrian. The Fulton family have been there for a long time so expectations are very high, but we need to step in and accept the challenges and fight for your right to be there as well.
“I am super excited because I have a brilliant bunch of guys on my team. I am so proud of them. The family feeling – I said it before – I have Bill and Neil [McCotter] and they make it more like a family.
“We want to take this club to the next level. Hopefully it is a project that we will work on for the next number of years. I am very lucky to be here and I love being with Belfast Star. It is a big club and the shirt is heavy, if I can say it that way. We will fight every day.”