To Mohammed Mohamud, the shortage of Somali players in basketball’s highest levels isn’t a question of interest — it’s only a matter of time.
When Mohamud, now 23, moved to Minneapolis from Utah in 2014, he was in awe of the Somali basketball players at the city’s courts.
“Just seeing more people like me that were Somali [and] hooping, it inspired me to do what I do now,” Mohamud said.
Mohamud is the founder of Hoops4Unity, a basketball league and organization for athletes of all backgrounds to play and participate in.
“I think we need more diverse basketball leagues, because there isn’t one,” Mohamud said. “People go to their little corner and we needed something that includes everybody. I just wanted the best of the best in Minnesota to play against each other.”
For this year’s Somali Week, an annual celebration to honor Somali Independence Day, Hoops4Unity pushed for a young adult tournament and a middle school tournament. In previous years, Somali Week has only featured a men’s basketball tournament.
But more basketball events aren’t the only thing that feels different for this year’s Somali Week, Hoops4Unity co-founder Amir Derie, 24, said.
“It’s America’s 250th birthday, it’s our [Somalia’s] national holiday, but it’s also a year where we … as Somalis, we had a bad year,” Derie said, referencing Operation Metro Surge’s impact. “So this will show people there’s more to us than how [the year] started.”
Hoops4Unity primarily serves the Somali American community in the Twin Cities, but it draws in athletes of all backgrounds for basketball tournaments, camps and league play. And just as important are the mentorship and academic support programs.
Recent tournaments include the Unity Memorial Classic, which honored five Somali women killed in a car crash in 2023, and the second-annual Hoops4Unity Eid tournament which raised money for humanitarian efforts in Somalia.
Nearly 800 people watched Hoops4Unity’s Eid tournament this past Spring. There were 22 teams.
“Inshallah, these opportunities will come,” Mohamud said, while noting continued community support will boost the group’s future efforts. “It’s going to be built by the community.”
How it started
Mohamud’s former basketball coach, Jennifer Weber, jokes that Hoops4Unity wouldn’t exist if she didn’t urge him to finish a project for his internship with Cedar Riverside Athletics and Enrichment, where she serves as director. In November 2024, with approximately six weeks left out of the six-month internship, Mohamud hadn’t yet started his project.
“I said Moballer, you still have not done your project. What are you going to do for this project?” Weber said.
In those six weeks, Mohamud organized a basketball tournament to raise money for Palestine. With hundreds of people in attendance, it was clear that interest in a league was there. That’s when he created Hoops4Unity — alongside co-founder Amir Derie, who Mohamud has known since age 11 — with the vision to be bigger than basketball.
That vision, Derie, 24, said, was to create a competitive platform for basketball players in Minneapolis, where players are sometimes afforded less opportunities or recognition than those in the suburbs.
“It’s just a way for us to bring the community together through basketball,” Derie said.
For Derie, a basketball player who grew up in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood, the mission behind Hoops4Unity was personal.
“I think we [Somali players] are very heavily underrepresented,” Derie, who often runs Hoops4Unity’s social media, said. “We have very great players, [but] coming into my junior year [of high school], I realized, there’s no highlight clips of me getting made, and there’s nobody that’s really looking out for me.”
Somali kids in the U.S., Derie says, tend to grow taller than they would back in Somalia. Additionally, name, image and likeness deals (NIL) can open more doors for athletes.
“It’s about getting a free education now and being able to get paid,” Derie said.
For the first months, the Hoops4Unity team met in Derie’s house to plan events and tournaments.
The growth of Hoops4Unity has been hard to scale, said Derie, but he estimates that more than 5,000 people have come to their events since Hoops4Unity began. Derie, Mohamud and the team behind Hoops4Unity now meet in an office space.
Weber said Hoops4Unity has grown because of Mohamud’s experience and ability to find people to support the organization. And his and Derie’s work together has elevated the program.
“It’s like building a team, right?” said Weber, who coached Mohamud’s basketball team in high school. “You’re building your team of [people] who can support you.”
Mohamud said that Hoops4Unity was built for people of all backgrounds to play and participate in. He wanted to create a diverse basketball league that focused on the community.
Mohamud said that Hoops4Unity wants to start an Amateur Athletic Union, or AAU level program to boost the successes of the athletes even further.
Making strides
Mohammed Saleh, an athlete who has participated in Hoops4Unity events, said the program helps connect people in the community and is among the fastest growing basketball leagues in Minnesota.
“We play Tuesdays and Thursdays now, and we really compete, connect, and reminisce about the good old times and build more memories as we hoop together,” Saleh said.
Former Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh, who has supported Hoops4Unity events, said that Hoops4Unity brings youth together in droves.
“They’re able to bring out hundreds at a time. I think that’s pretty powerful,” Fateh said. “That’s the kind of energy, and that kind of organizing and movement, that we need.”
While Hoops4Unity has made large strides, people inside and outside of the organization recognize there is still work to be done.
Muna Mohamed, founder of modest/inclusive activewear brand Kalsoni and a girls youth basketball coach, said there is a lack of girls and women’s teams within Hoops4Unity. But the coach notes that the support and use of resources has helped improve the status of girls and women’s basketball within the community.
Mohamed said that Mohamud’s work helped create a lot, without using a lot of resources.
“He took action, and he did what he had to do with the resources that he had, and he made this happen,” Mohamed said.
Derie recognizes the lack of girls and women’s teams within Hoops4Unity. Organizers were discouraged when a mini basketball camp for girls drew few participants. Yet the organization has a U14, or under-14 girls team and Hoops4Unity still wants to create more girls and women’s teams in the future, Derie said.
Hoops4Unity will hold a Somali Week tournament for U19, or under-19, and middle school athletes from July 2-5. Hoops4Unity will also hold their first annual Unity Showcase basketball matchup during Somali Week on July 1.
