Kuwaiti hoops star a Rebels regular

By Rob Miech (contact)

Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008 | 2:10 a.m.

Rob Miech

Majid Khazal, 40, was at home in Kuwait City when Iraq invaded in 1990. He wound up playing for the Iraqi national hoops team and is one of the Middle East's most celebrated players. UNLV coach Lon Kruger has welcomed him at practices this season.

From always being in the spotlight on a basketball court in the Middle East and Europe, Majid Khazal now directs that light as a technician for "KA," a Cirque du Soleil show at the MGM Grand.

The 40-year-old former Asian hoops star has learned to live with anonymity in Las Vegas, but he can’t survive away from the basketball courts.

He has survived the Iraqi invasion of his native Kuwait in 1990 and meeting the tyrant son of Saddam Hussein, and he mourns the loss of family members in the current Iraqi conflict.

When Khazal sought to broaden his basketball knowledge, UNLV coach Lon Kruger welcomed him into his program with open arms and complete access to team meetings and skull sessions with his assistants.

Khazal is a regular at practices. He always has the day’s itinerary of drills on a sheet of white paper. Rene Rougeau, Chace Stanback and other Rebels always check in with him and say hello.

Often, halfway through the runs, Khazal zips to the MGM to start his shift at 3:30 p.m.

He hopes to earn his U.S. citizenship sometime late in 2009.

He closed his eyes and slowly shook his head Wednesday at the Thomas & Mack Center to acknowledge how thankful he is to Kruger, UNLV, Las Vegas and America.

“I am so thankful,” Khazal said. “My whole story … I really appreciate that they’re trying to help me keep up with everything they’re doing and the philosophies of the team.”

Kruger didn’t hesitate in accommodating Khazal.

“He wants to coach, go back to the Middle East and help teach basketball,” Kruger said. “It was a very easy decision. He loves basketball and is a really good guy. It’s good to have him around.”

Rebels assistant coach Greg Grensing regularly exchanges ideas and schemes with Khazal and shows him, as he did Wednesday, some of the many options the Rebels have out of Kruger’s basic offense.

Khazal points to other areas of the court and asks questions.

“He spends a lot of time thinking about it,” Grensing said. “He spends a lot of time talking with us. This is different from what he’s used to, and he’s got a good grasp of what we’re trying to do.

“He understands the wrinkles coach adds to the offense as we go along. He has a pretty good idea of the big picture.”

Grensing can only vaguely envision the trauma Khazal has experienced.

“He’s seen things that we all would have nightmares over,” Grensing said. “Those things are not easily opened up and talked about.”

Over the course of three conversations, Khazal opens up a little.

As he walked to work, at a BMW dealership, in Kuwait City one morning in August 1990, the traffic stopped him in his tracks.

Usually it headed away from him. This time it came toward him.

“The Iraqis are invading,” a friend told Khazal as he hustled back home.

That sidelined Khazal’s departure for a professional basketball team in the United Arab Emirates, but he wound up having a wildly successful career in the Middle East and starring on the Iraqi national team.

Khazal was wooed to that team because of his status in the region, starring on club teams in Greece and Turkey, and because both of his parents were born in Iraq.

He once told Grensing’s wife, Michelle, how he is revered back home. He’s considered a star, on par with how American fans ogle NBA players.

Khazal even met Ude Hussein, son of the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who directed all of Iraq’s national sports teams.

Torture and jail were common to players and participants on those squads who did not meet Ude’s expectations.

“I did not have any problems at all,” Khazal said. “I didn’t really know him. He said congratulations when we won a championship. We shook hands and he said we did a great job.

“But I didn’t want to be a member of their party. I knew people who were badly tortured or were put in jail. Thank God, I didn’t know him.”

He had the luxury of mostly playing for Iraq when it played in tournaments outside the country.

Six relatives have been killed in the current conflict in Iraq.

“For the country, it’s good,” Khazal said of the extinguishing of Saddam Hussein’s reign. “They want their freedom. Right now, we’re dealing with terrorists. We’re not fighting the Iraqis.

“It’s the terrorists. We have to get rid of these people.”

He moved to Las Vegas in 2003, got married, had a child and then got divorced. Abdulla, his son, is 4.

The divorce threw Khazal’s citizenship process in a different, much more difficult direction.

“He has quite a bit of self-discipline and self-motivation,” Grensing said. “He works 3:30 to midnight, but comes here to watch practice. And he has a little boy.

“You gain a lot of respect for someone who is that committed to wanting to learn about the game.”

Having a U.S. passport will allow Khazal to travel freely between the Middle East, where he wants to teach what he’s learning from Kruger, and Las Vegas to visit Abdulla.

“I will fight for this country,” Khazal said. “The way they respect me and treat me here makes me always love this country. I never thought I’d be here. In a dream, maybe I thought I’d visit.

“But I never dreamt of becoming a citizen.”