From Muslim Immigrant to BYU Student Body Prez

Mohammad El Akkari, a Lebanese professional basketball player, made headlines on April 4 when he scored 113 points in FIBA Asia league game. The 27-year-old went in averaging 7.8 points per game, but that day he couldn't miss.

Two oceans away, his younger brother Mustapha El Akkari, a BYU-Hawaii student, is on a shooting streak of his own. "I'm hitting every shot I'm taking," he said. And though his comment sounds cocky, people who know El Akkari wouldn't characterize him that way. El Akkari isn't referring to basketball shots, of course (although he's had some luck with those too) but rather a string of opportunities. He was a member of the Lebanese junior national basketball team. At 15 he earned a scholarship to play basketball at a private school in the U.S. Good grades made it possible for him to stay in the states and go to college. And then, perhaps most improbably at all, the boy who had survived war and hardship became student body president of BYU-Hawaii. A practicing Muslim, he is the first non-LDS student to hold the position in the school's 57-year history.