Washington — Sport, it has been said, is a universal language.

Few have developed greater fluency in its use than the State Department’s SportsUnited initiative, employing basketball, swimming, beach volleyball and other activities to launch conversations with young people around the world.

SportsUnited includes the Sports Envoy Program, which sends professional athletes and coaches overseas to engage sports-oriented boys and girls, and the Sports Visitor Program, which brings coaches and young athletes to the United States. SportsUnited also provides grants to public and private nonprofit institutions overseas to enhance local youth sports programs.

In May, a Sports Visitor Program brought 22 Russian basketball players, ages 13-15, to Washington, along with four coaches. As participants in the first sports exchange resulting from the efforts of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, the young people enjoyed a special treat during their two-week visit: a meeting with the basketball-loving President Obama, who took time to shoot baskets with them on the White House court. (See a photo gallery on the visit.)

“I like the fact that [Obama] enjoys basketball and still plays,” recalled Valeria, a 15-year-old participant, in a blog entry. “The last shot he took was very special. It was a fade-away and he put it right through the hoop — it was really cool.”

More broadly impressed was Maria, 15. “I still can’t believe we’re in the U.S.,” she wrote. “Everyone here is so nice. It’s a pleasure to communicate with everyone. I’m at a loss for words because everyone is so attentive.”

And Vlad, 14, reported that through a chance encounter he was able to shake hands with professional basketball great Shaquille O’Neal. “I was so excited, not everyone has a chance to meet such an athlete!”

In June, a group of young soccer players came to Washington from four different regions of Venezuela. Their program included a ball-handling clinic with the head coach of the Washington Freedom — a women’s professional soccer team — and a viewing party at RFK Stadium for the U.S.-Algeria World Cup game with the D.C. United men’s professional soccer team.

A DIALOGUE WITH YOUNG PEOPLE

SportsUnited aims to engage in a dialogue with non-elite youth ages 7-17 and help them “discover how success in athletics can help give them the skills they need to achieve in the classroom and beyond,” according to its website. There are no educational or language requirements for participation.

The term “non-elite” applies in two ways, said SportsUnited Director Nina Bishop: “They’re not athletes that are performing as national team members; we try to work at the grass-roots level. We’re also looking for the underprivileged kids.”

Bishop sees a program as being successful if it “gets to an audience that we have not been able to reach before. … Lots of times in some countries, sports is the only thing that works.”

When former Baltimore Orioles baseball greats Cal Ripken and Dennis Martinez visited Nicaragua in 2008, for example, “they reached maybe seven-eighths of the country by being on TV and on the newspaper front pages every day they were there,” Bishop said. Martinez was the first Major League Baseball player from Nicaragua.

Sports Envoys conduct drills and team-building activities, and also talk with young people about the importance of education, positive health practices and respect for diversity.

Among recent Sports Envoy programs are visits by professional basketball players to Tunisia, soccer coaches to Azerbaijan, former men’s and women’s national soccer team players to Côte d’Ivoire, volleyball Olympians to Zambia, professional snowboarders to Armenia, former baseball greats to Taiwan, and skating star Michelle Kwan to South Korea.

SportsUnited officials project an equally ambitious schedule ahead. This summer will see the arrival of Russian swimmers, while Americans go to Russia for beach volleyball. Egyptian youngsters and Moroccan girls will attend a pair of basketball programs, and a group from Panama is coming for a youth soccer program. Each visiting group will have training and clinics, combined with sessions on conflict resolution, on the Title IX program and funding for women’s school sports, and on disability and sports.

Soccer coaches from China and basketball coaches from India will come to Virginia, Ugandan youngsters will travel to Minnesota for soccer training, and Turkish and Armenian basketball players will visit Maryland under grant programs.

SPORTS OPENS DOORS

Program officer Ray Harvey, who heads the Sports Envoys effort, agrees that sport provides a unique opportunity for engaging young people. “Frequently these are the very first Americans these kids have ever met, and they are sitting down, taking time from busy schedules to not only come to their country but come to their school to do a program,” Harvey said. “And what you see afterwards is these kids and adults and facilities are then more open to other U.S. embassy programming.”

“Sports opens the door,” he said. “It’s a pretty amazing experience for the kids to meet an athlete they’ve just Googled and actually get his autograph. It builds a lot of good will.”

More information is available on the SportsUnited website and its Facebook page.