Envision waking up every morning having to go to football practice for hours in 105-degree weather knowing you can’t have any breakfast and you can’t eat or drink anything until sundown.
This was the dilemma faced by Asan Beg, a freshman, who was determined to balance out his strong religious beliefs and passion for playing football.
Every year during Ramadan, this year it ran from July 8 through Aug. 7, Muslims fast every day from dawn till dusk for a whole month and are not allowed to eat or drink anything. Not even water.
This year football practices happened to fall right in the middle of Ramadan.
“It’s a billion times harder to play football while fasting,” Beg said.
He explained that not being able to eat isn’t what made it tough. Rather it was not being able to drink any water, which created the biggest obstacle for him.
“When you’re drinking water you feel fine during practice because it doesn’t feel as hot and your mouth isn’t dry and you can actually do stuff… when you’re fasting you feel like you can’t do anything. You can’t go on,” Beg said.
The intensity of the heat and the strain that coach was putting on players really dehydrated Beg.
“I considered breaking my fast every 30 seconds,” Beg said.
“I worried for Asan because the weather was extremely hot, approaching 100 degrees, and a person can get de-hydrated and get sick,” Beg’s mom Suboohi said. “He was physically very tired and very thirsty and irritated but he maintained the fast till the sunset.  We were watchful and concerned but supported him maintaining the fast.”
Because Beg joined late, he had to go to practice every day without exceptions. He had already missed enough days of practice and couldn’t afford to skip anymore.
Collin Macias, one of Beg’s teammates, was astonished when he heard about Beg’s fasting.
“I don’t think anyone knew he was fasting that whole month,” Macias said.
Beg further revealed that very few people knew of his fasting and that he didn’t feel it was important to announce it to the whole team.
He said the few people who did know constantly talked about it and tried pressuring him into breaking his fast. Despite all that, Beg didn’t break his fast a single day.
Macias greatly acknowledged his fellow teammate’s effort.
“It takes a lot of determination to do something like that; I would never be able to do it because I love food too much,” Macias said.
“Fasting is his duty and football is his choice which should also be accomplished properly.  It was worrisome especially in the hot weather in June/July when Ramadan again next year,” Suboohi Beg said.