This article appeared in the October issue of Lacrosse Magazine. Don't get the mag? Join US Lacrosse and its 300,000-plus members today to start your monthly subscription.

Lifestyles: Lacrosse People in Unique Places

Ambassador Christopher Hill (fourth from right, blue gloves) poses with fellow charter members of the Baghdad Lacrosse Club on the grounds of the U.S. embassy. © Austin Bergan

Christopher Hill arrived in Baghdad on April 24 as the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, and he didn’t even make it from the airport to the embassy before he found a fellow lacrosse player. Hill, a former Bowdoin midfielder, spoke to LM for its October issue about the challenges and rewards of the life of a diplomat, as well as how to convert a tennis court into a lacrosse field.

Do you have a stick with you at the embassy?

I sure do. I always have a stick with me. Bouncing around a lacrosse ball, it helps in my thinking process. What happened here in Iraq is that I had a stick in my bag and I’m driving in from the airport and I have my security guys in the car. I turned to the person next to me, who was the acting Chief of Mission [CoM is a technical term for the top person at an embassy, usually the Ambassador], and said, “I guess I’ll be really jet-lagged, so I’ll probably get up at 3 and throw a lacrosse ball against the wall for a while.” The security guy turned around and said, “You play lacrosse?” So he and I played catch the next day and some people saw us here at the embassy. One thing led to another, so now you are talking to a charter member of the Baghdad Lacrosse Club. We ordered equipment and had our first scrimmage earlier this week.

Is there a field?

We’re trying to get a proper field, and we’ve got some plans for that.  We’re renovating some land to have a multi-use field. We have all these Peruvian guards at the embassy and they’re all soccer nuts. They’re playing on this dirt place and skinning their knees all the time. So eventually we’ll have a field where there can be soccer and lacrosse.

So where are you playing now?

We had sort of a box lacrosse game. We took the nets out of the two tennis courts and we have two lacrosse cages. We played three on three plus one goalie and the other goal had one of those things that cover the front of the cage so you have to shoot at the corners. We only had six helmets and we thought at first that we would just not go with helmets, but as soon as we started the game and people were hitting each other on a cement tennis court we decided to go with the helmets. We’re going to have order more helmets, because we had something like 14 guys show up, and a couple women too. My security guy played at West Point, and we’ve got a couple other West Point guys and a Navy guy. I played for Bowdoin, and there are a few clubbers from the Baltimore area. So it’s a growing concern.

When’s the next game?

We’re talking about getting together tomorrow morning. One of the challenges here is during the day, the temperature out there is about 120. At night it’ll go down as low as 110. But it’s still awfully hot. In the morning it can actually be below 100 so we’re going to try to play tomorrow morning. It’s 118 right now with 8 percent humidity.

How do sports play a role in diplomacy?

First of all, people are very proud to represent their country, and I think Americans get a sense of that when we watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. You see these athletes from tiny little countries who have no chance of winning a medal, but when they come into the stadium it’s a very, very big moment for their country. Being represented in the Olympics or these big sports tournaments, it means a lot to them, maybe even more than having a seat in the U.N.
The United States is not the only sports-nut country in the world. Even here in Iraq, they had 50,000 people come to the stadium and watch the Iraq national soccer team. Sports are really important to people. If you’re a diplomat, it’s a great icebreaker to ask about sports. When people ask about American games, they’re very curious about American football and why there’s a meeting every 20 seconds. Then I’ll try to describe lacrosse and they say, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen that! I know what you’re talking about,” but then it becomes apparent they’re talking about jai lai. And I say, “No, lacrosse looks more like soccer.”

When you’ve been stationed in places like Cameroon or Kosovo, do you even try to explain lacrosse?

I do. I always explain it as a combo of soccer, basketball and hockey. You have to get the hockey reference in because you go behind the goal. Often I get a blank stare, but what’s better is when I can get out the stick and show them. I like to market it overseas as a uniquely American game, because it comes from our Native American culture.

What’s the oddest corner of the world where you have seen some evidence of lacrosse?

I saw some guys playing in Seoul and it turned out they had gone to school in the States. Also in Yugoslavia. They had picked it up in the States.

How did you get into lacrosse?

I went to high school at the Moses Brown School in Providence, R.I., and in ninth grade I was introduced to the sport in the fall. I just really liked it. I worked on my stick work, and I made the varsity as a defenseman in ninth grade. The next year I became center midfield and that’s where I’ve been ever since.

And you had a college career at Bowdoin as well?

Yes. My claim to fame is that in the ECAC New England Division III championship game in 1974, Bowdoin beat Wesleyan, 15-7. And there was a hapless attackman named Bill Belichick who did not score that day because I was on him. He’s never been heard from again. I guess I drove him into football.

I played in an alumni game at Bowdoin a few months ago. My coach ,Mort LaPointe was there, and he must be pushing 80 now. When I came off one of the shifts, I said, “Coach, I picked up a ground ball!” He said, “About time, Hill.”

How did you decide that diplomacy was a career you wanted to pursue after college?

My dad was in it [the Foreign Service] but more fundamentally, I joined the Peace Corps after college. Right after we beat Wesleyan. [Laughs.] I was helping people audit credit unions and I just really enjoyed being in foreign cultures and helping people to get through problems. I took the Foreign Service exam and passed it and I entered the Foreign Service. I kept saying to myself I probably won’t stay in forever. It’s now 32 years later.

So why do you think it stuck?

The opportunity to represent the United States overseas and showing what our country is all about, and to represent our people and their interests is an honor. I think it’s a career that’s second to none. There’s always going to be some people in the world with an opinion of the United States, and to the extent that we can affect them, those opinions can be good opinions. We need American diplomats to go out and explain what we’re doing. You can’t just go to foreign countries and say, “We’re going to do this whether you like it or not.” You need allies and partners. You need people to believe in you. A lot of times you’re asking countries to do things that they don’t want to do. If you can get them to trust you, they’ll do them.

Diplomacy seems like the ultimate “team sport” in that you have to get a lot of people communicating and working toward a shared goal, especially in places with as many fractured interests as the Balkans and Iraq. Does your lacrosse background come in handy?

Absolutely. I’m a strong believer in the idea that if you played on a team, you can be a diplomat. You need different people to do different things at an embassy. Team sports, moreso than sitting through a geography class, is a much better preparation for diplomacy. Also, I’ve joked that there are times that you just want to pick up a lacrosse stick and reach across the desk and hit the other guy.

Honestly, sir, that doesn’t sound very diplomatic.

[Laughing] You’re trying to force the ball and get a goal!

Obviously it has been a rough week in Iraq with the bombings. [Note: This interview was conducted on August 21, two days after a pair of massive car bombs killed nearly 100 people and wounded 500 more in Baghdad.]  The line “Bringing peace to the Middle East” unfortunately has become sort of a code for futility. How do you keep a positive outlook in the face of so many challenges?

First of all, there’s no question that Iraq has been very difficult, but I think progress is being made. Despite the violence, people are living better lives than they did under a dictator like Saddam Hussein. The thing to remember is you don’t get any instant gratification. In 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, everyone developed this view that things would go well in a hurry. Well, things take time. I spoke to my staff yesterday after these terrible bombings, because I wanted people to understand that, yes, this is a setback, but this should make us want to do more and work even harder on this. We shouldn’t be set back by these things. If I didn’t think we were making progress, I wouldn’t be here.

Can you take me through a typical day at work for you?

Let me see. Yesterday was a little unusual because we had this terrible bombing here in Baghdad, so there’s a lot of internal stuff about that. The previous day I left my house at 8 and took a helicopter out to the air base and then flew up to a place called Kirkuk, which is a very tense city in Iraq where there’s been a lot of tension between the Kurdish and Arab communities. The city sits between Kurdish and Arab lands and it’s disputed. I met with the American embassy team there. I met with the U.S. military. I went into the center of Kirkuk in an armored vehicle. I met with the governor of the province. I met with the provincial council. Then lunch, and I met with a bunch of private sector Iraqis to hear their views instead of just politicians. I met with an American NGO [non-governmental organization] called Mercy Corps who have some projects to help women with education and things like that. Then I went back out to the base and I met with a UN person who’s out there trying to help. Then I flew back to Baghdad and got back around 8 o’clock.

On Tuesday I had a pretty typical day. A couple of staff meetings in the morning. One meeting with one of the project auditors to make sure the money is being well spent. Then I met with the British ambassador for a lengthy meeting because we try to coordinate things with the British. Later on I talked to another foreign ambassador, the Dutch ambassador. I met with the Iraqi finance minister and then at night I had dinner with the US journalists who are based here in Baghdad.

What has been the most rewarding part about serving as the ambassador to Iraq?

Well, first of all, working with the U.S. military. Working closely with my colleagues in uniform. Then, trying to help Iraq solve its problems. One day I went out with a minister of electricity and we had a General Electric project we were working on. We were able to bring a lot more power online. The hope is that if we can continue this, we’ll have fewer military generals and more General Electric. That was a good day. Peoples’ lives are improving thanks to that electricity. Another day, I met with all these Iraqi students who are going to study in the States and I talked to them about how they’re going to be representatives of their country abroad, and how they might well be the only Iraqi person a lot of Americans have ever met or will ever meet. There’s a great responsibility with that. And I told them to try to learn about American sports. Try to learn about baseball. A couple of them were going to the University of Alabama, so I told them if it’s a Saturday afternoon and you’re the only one in the library, it’s because there’s a football game. Again, sports are kind of an icebreaker.

What was your favorite stationing thus far in your career?

I was the Ambassador to Poland in 2000-2004. I had served in Poland before in a very sad time in 1983, when they had martial law and this very brutal Communist system there. And then to come back in 2000, it was like seeing a black-and-white movie turn into colors. There were shops, restaurants, traffic jams, all of that. To work in Poland, having seen it flat on its back less than 20 years before, was really a great pleasure.