GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — One of the basketball coaches at Grand Rapids Community College is helping student athletes achieve their goals by sharing his story of overcoming a childhood surrounded by war and uncertainty.
Islam Hoxha is now an assistant coach at GRCC. He also works fulltime with Corewell Health as a patient services representative. He and his wife are expecting their first child early in 2023.
Now living his own American dream, he could have never imagined all he's accomplished as a child in war-torn Kosovo.
That's where Hoxha was born, living a simple life with his siblings. His father worked in a field during the day and played soccer professionally in the evening.
The Kosovo War broke out in 1998— Yugoslavia fighting the Kosovo Liberation Army.
“You can't understand it. You're scared the whole time and you just don't know if you're gonna make it the next day, especially hearing gunshots, explosions,” Hoxha recounted to FOX 17 Thursday. “When the war started nobody thought they'd get out of the country."
As quickly as they could, his family fled to nearby Macedonia. NATO eventually entered the conflict, and his family was briefly able to return home.
As soon as they got word that the Clinton administration was accepting refugees to the United States, they began the process.
At seven years old, Hoxha stepped off a plane at Gerald R. Ford International Airport, unable to speak a word of English.
He attended Forest Hills Northern and played on its soccer team.
“But basketball was in my heart,” he said.
Living in West Michigan, Hoxha would try to visit his homeland once a year. During one of his trips, he met his wife and was introduced to the world of coaching basketball.
"I went down there once in 2018 or 2019, and I saw her sitting at the cafe," he explained. "I asked my cousin who she was... then I tried finding her on social media... I sent her a message, and we just started talking."
He ended up staying in Kosovo for about a year and volunteered for a prominent league before eventually returning to the United States with his wife. That's when he ended up at GRCC.
"I would do this for the rest of my life," Hoxha said. "When I came in, first day here, it was like 'boom', like my other family... Like, everything fit in."
He finds himself often sharing his story with his student-athletes, hoping they can relate to his story of pushing forward in the midst of overwhelming uncertainty.
“I didn't know what was next when I was a child in Kosovo... But look at us now,” he said. “I want to help young men, young adults, get through whatever they're going through, get to their goals, get to their milestone, whatever that it is, because I remember coming here.”
