NOTE: When the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed in August of 2021, Bard College was among a few institutions which pledged to offer scholarships to students displaced by the conflict. In the Fall 2022 term, 47 students from Afghanistan are enrolled at Bard. Thirty more Afghan scholarship students are awaiting final approval of their immigration designation and the institution hopes to welcome them to campus in January.

By Jim Sheahan
Director of Athletic Communications & Marketing

Mujtaba Naqib's first night on the Bard College campus was January 11, 2022. It was a blustery 15 degrees in Annandale. From bed, he stared at the ceiling in the room in his new home, Cruger Hall, and listened to the wind whipping outside.

He couldn't sleep. His mind was racing.

On Aug. 26 of the previous summer, he was forced to flee Afghanistan when the Taliban regained power. He was in the Kabul airport on the day a suicide bombing resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. troops, and he had just the clothes on his back, a laptop and a small backpack. Without notice, he was flown to Qatar and lived under a tent for four days with 700 other people, then flown to Germany, where he lived in an encampment for 45 days with about 1,200 displaced people. Then, again without notice, he was flown to Philadelphia, and bussed to Quantico, Va., on Oct. 15.

Now, by some miracle, he was a student at Bard College. He was easily 20 pounds lighter than the day he left Kabul. And he couldn't sleep.

"I just decided to go outside," Naqib said. "I saw some boys kicking a soccer ball around, and I just leaned up against the wall and was watching them."

Playing on the concrete under the arched entryway to Cruger Hall were five freezing Bard students: Reed Campbell, Gavin Hersey, Dylan Kotlowitz, Cole Ewalt and Peter Mahoney. They are members of the Bard men's soccer team.

"We had set up two trash cans as goals and we were just playing," Campbell said. "We saw this guy was watching us for a while so we just asked him if he wanted to play."

"I had seen him upstairs earlier in the day," Hersey said. "He was asking us for directions to buildings on campus."

"So he took his shoes off - I think he was wearing Crocs anyway," Campbell recalled. "And he immediately started cooking us. Some of the moves he was doing were insane. His dribbling skills were amazing."

Muji, as he's known to friends (MOO-jee), was invited to unofficial soccer workouts with the team, and he often brought new campus friends with him. These unstructured workouts are not overseen by coaches, but his skills were impressive enough to prompt Kotlowitz to mention him to Head Men's Soccer coach TJ Kostecky. Kostecky made a quick note of it. Official NCAA spring practices wouldn't happen until March and extend into April.

On Feb. 26, Kostecky, who is Ukrainian, attended a student-organized vigil for Ukraine in the Chapel of the Holy Innocents on campus. At that event, a young man got up to speak. It was Muji, but Kostecky and Naqib didn't know each other yet.

"So this young man stands up - we're all wearing masks - and he mentioned that he was from Afghanistan, and that he appreciated how Ukraine had helped so many Afghan refugees," Kostecky said. "He said that if he could return the favor to the Ukrainians, he would. His message was so genuine and heartfelt, it really hit me, and I was really struggling that week.

"When he finished, he was crying and I got up and hugged him," Kostecky added through his own tears. "It inspired me to speak. I had nothing prepared. I got up there - you could have heard a pin drop - and I told them about my parents and grandparents fleeing Stalin. It was very emotional."

In March, as official spring soccer practices were set to begin. Kostecky looked back at his notes and reached out via email to the player Kotlowitz had told him about. A meeting was arranged.

"So this young man walks into my office, and I reach out my hand and say it's nice to meet you," Kostecky said. "And he says, 'It's nice to see you again, coach.' That's when I realize it's the Afghan student from the vigil. I didn't recognize him because of the masks. We both started crying again."

Kostecky invited Muji to join the team for spring practices, and even though he hadn't regained the weight he had lost and was still not at full strength, he held his own. The culmination of the spring workouts is the Andrew McCabe Memorial Alumni Game, and Muji scored a goal that day. Members of the team used the event to fundraise for Bard's Afghan Student Fund.

This fall, Muji made the Bard men's soccer team as a walk-on, quite an accomplishment when you remember that Bard plays in the Liberty League, one of the most prestigious and competitive Div. III conferences in the country.

"I ended up here because of an Instagram post," Muji said. "My access to the Internet was very infrequent in those weeks after I left Kabul, but once I got to Quantico, it was better, and I immediately started trying to figure out what was going to happen with my education.

"About 2-3 days into my time at Quantico, my sister sent me a screenshot of an Instagram post that said Bard was giving scholarships to displaced Afghan students," he said. "I emailed the Admissions office. I was late, but they were very nice. I wrote a letter and made a video to submit with my application. I waited until 4 in the morning in the camp to edit the video, because the Internet was quicker then. I had no choice."

He was accepted as a junior and began his pursuit of a degree in Computer Science. His spring term grade point average was 3.80. Then, through the Career Development Office, he earned a summer internship with Pfizer in New York City. Pfizer, after hearing his story, secured for him pro bono legal help with his asylum case. That work is ongoing.

He can't go back to Malaysia, where he was born, because he is not a citizen and his visa is expired; he obviously can't go back to Afghanistan, where he is a citizen, but he was working for a "U.S. funded government project," and if he leaves the United States for any reason, he can't return.

"Forty years before all this, my father left Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded," Muji said. "He went to Malaysia to continue his studies. I was studying remote at International Islamic School Malaysia when I had to leave, and got to Afghanistan in June of 2021, so I wasn't there very long."

His parents, Mohammed Naqib and Nabegha Hussaini, live in Malaysia. His sister, Saijiah Naqib, is at Syracuse University on a Fulbright Scholarship. He did visit his sister recently but hasn't seen his parents in more than a year.

"Bard is very beautiful, and the school has done everything to help me," Muji said. "The boys on the team have tried so hard to make the transition smooth for me. I have felt very supported."

A preseason knee injury kept Muji off the field as the Bard men's soccer team played non-Liberty League opponents in early September, and now that the Raptors are in the thick of the Liberty League schedule, the quality of the opponents and the depth of Bard's roster have conspired to keep him on the bench so far.

He is contributing, though.

"We do a circle before every training on the center of the field, and Muji gave the best speech I've ever heard the other night," Campbell said.

Part of the team culture Kostecky and his squad have built includes four Team Ethos: Integrity, Community, Heart, and Vision.

"Each week I select four players on Monday, and each has to prepare a meaningful example of our theme that week in the circle before practice," Kostecky said. "It was Muji's turn the other night. We were blown away."

Here is what Muji read to the team in the circle.

"As we all know, this week's ethos is Heart. The way I look at heart is when a person is there for someone through good and bad times, whether they know each other or not. It reminds me of my first few months at Bard. I had just gone through the most traumatic experience of my life, and I was still healing from it when Russia invaded Ukraine. I remember seeing the pictures of Ukrainian people fleeing their own country, and it reminded me of how I was forced to flee my country.

"When I heard that students at Bard were organizing an event to stand with Ukraine at the chapel in February, I knew that I had to speak that day for the people of Ukraine because I understood their pain. After I spoke, I got very emotional. Someone who was there came and immediately gave me a hug because I was crying, and this was before I knew who he was. That someone turned out to be Coach TJ.

"Coach TJ was there to give me comfort during a time when he was hurting, and I remember when I went to his office to talk about joining the team, I immediately recognized who he was because of that day. That was when I knew that the culture of the team was going to be very supportive, because if Coach TJ was there to support me when we didn't even know each other, then I could only imagine the support I would receive from the coaches and the team the moment I joined the team.

"I'm going to end today's ethos by saying I love each and every one of you for making me feel included on this team, whether I'm on the field, or on the bench. Kicking the ball around with all of you really helped me during my tough times and because of all of you, I feel one thousand percent better. Thank you to everyone for being amazing, and I am very proud to be part of this community."

Kostecky, like all of those in attendance, was moved by Muji's words, but not surprised in the least by the content of his character.

"He got his ticket and all his paperwork to get out of Afghanistan, and he's ready to go," Kostecky said, recalling something they discussed during their first meeting. "The Taliban is closing in, but all of the other people in his office don't know how to fill out the paperwork, or even where to go to get the paperwork, and their only hope for survival is to get airlifted out of there.

"He doesn't abandon them," Kostecky added. "He worked with all of them, and waited until all of them had their freedom secured, even though he could have left a week earlier. The next day after everyone got out, the Taliban raided that office. Everyone is likely to have been killed. THAT is what you call courage. That is heart, right there."
 

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