Hossein Vatan

1934 - 2011

(News article) BOWLING GREEN -- A Bowling Green businessman who played soccer for an Iranian national team before immigrating to the United States and opening a gift shop and sporting goods stores in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Hossein Vatan, 77, died Tuesday at Hospice of Northwest Ohio in Perrysburg.

The cause of death was undetermined, although his daughter, Deanna Woodhouse, said her father had been in failing health.

Mr. Vatan was the first member of his family to immigrate to the United States when he left Iran at age 26, Ms. Woodhouse said. He became a citizen in 1975 in a naturalization ceremony in Toledo.

In 1961, he married Pontiac, Mich., native Donna Carrigan. The couple subsequently moved to Bowling Green when his wife accepted a job teaching home economics at Bowling Green State University.

Within a decade of arriving in the United States, he opened Vatan's Imports and Gifts in Bowling Green, using his connection to Iran to import specialty items from his native country.

When he later opened The Locker Room, a sporting goods store in Bowling Green, the university's hockey team was beginning to take off as a varsity sport, his daughter said.

He had a special interest in the Falcons' hockey team. Before BGSU players left for out-of-town games over holidays, the team would be feted at the Vatan home, Ms. Woodhouse said. Falcon hockey coaches were frequent guests as well, she said. "He supported the teams for over four decades," she said.

His interest in sports is what led to his opening of the sporting goods store, which he later expanded to Wooster and Butler, Pa.

Other BGSU students, especially those his wife taught at the university, were frequent house guests as well.

"Lots of students came into our lives because my mother was a teacher," she said.

Mr. Vatan's skills on the soccer field led to his participation on an Iranian national team while a young man, said his daughter.

"He had a very deep love of soccer," Ms. Woodhouse said, noting that her father never played for Iran's World Cup team.

Mr. Vatan closed the gift shop and sporting goods stores when he retired in the early 1990s but later took a part-time job with a Toledo golf shop to keep busy, Ms. Woodhouse said.

He is survived by his wife, Donna; daughters, Deanna Woodhouse and Heidi Popovitch, son, Michael; two grandchildren; and sisters, Esmat Vatan, Aazam Vafaiizadeh, Effat Soltani, Shamci Kordestani, Badri Tayyanipour, and Fakhri Ashtiani.

Services will be at 2 p.m. Friday at Dunn Funeral home, 408 W. Wooster St., Bowling Green. Memorials are suggested to Hospice of Northwest Ohio, Perrysburg Township, or the Wood County Hospital Foundation.

Contact Blade staff writer Jim Sielicki at: jsielicki@theblade.com or 419-724-6050.