HOLLYWOOD – Cheering up their Muslim teammate, a Floridian high school football team decided to don hijab before their season finale game to show solidarity with their Muslim captain who has been taunted repeatedly over her religious outfit.
“Everybody looked at us weird,” West Broward senior Marilyn Solorzano told Sun Sentinel website on Friday, April 20.
“I understand now everything she went through and how hard it must have been.
“We just wore it for one day, and we noticed the difference. It was hard to keep on. It kept falling and our heads got really hot. You have to give her [credit] for wearing it every day.”
Donning hijab in middle school, Irum Khan, 17-year-old captain of West Broward High flag football team, endured far more than the usual pre-teenage taunting.
Early during her first years of high school, some classmates called her a terrorist and cursed at her.
She had rocks thrown at her and was physically attacked more than once.
The idea to wear hijab by the whole team was praised by the team coach as showing solidarity that unites the players.
“We’ve been trying to stress that the team comes first. The team always comes first,” Matt Garris, the West Broward coach, told xx
Islam sees hijab as an obligatory code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying one’s affiliations.
