When Benham Hassankhani died April 16 of a heart attack, he was just 50 years old. As a respected, outgoing member of the MSU faculty and the Lansing-area soccer community, friends said he will be greatly missed.
“We miss him terribly, he was a good guy,” said Cynthia Donovan, assistant professor of international development at MSU. “We (were) sent emails from around the world of people giving us comments in remembrance. He was a very important part of our program.”
Hassankhani was the administration officer of the Legume Innovation Lab at MSU. He was responsible for accounting and bookkeeping for the competitive grants program and helped arrange international conferences and travel for those meetings.
“Professionally, he was very organized (and) went by the rules,” Donovan said. “He had a very transparent way of managing projects (and) people respected this. On the other side, Ben was a very engaging person that we all enjoyed working with. He would often challenge us, but with a smile.”
The Legume Innovation Lab works to feed the future by conducting research and training on legumes to improve nutritional outcomes around the world.
MSU crop and soil scientist and Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station researcher Jim Kelly worked with Hassankhani on several occasions and recalls a meeting that took place in Barcelona with Hassankhani. Hassankhani was a big supporter of Barcelona and was able to see a soccer game — a huge thrill, Kelly said.
Hassankhani also was a well-respected member of the soccer community in the Lansing area. He coached in the Capitol Area Soccer League, or CASL, for numerous years and formed bonds with the athletes and parents friends said most coaches wouldn’t have achieved.
“His sense of humor — oh my gosh, he was a funny guy,” Peggy Curtiss, who worked to help manage his soccer teams. “(I) never saw him get mad. Typically, there were soccer games that we lost and he would get frustrated, but from the standpoint of working with him, I don’t think there was a day that went by that he didn’t thank me for. He always had a smile on his face.”
Not only was Hassankhani a soccer coach to many, he also was a referee for a number of years.
“It was just that he was not someone who just did his job description, he went above and beyond,” Curtiss said. “Everyone knew him.”
As a person who did not want others to worry about him, not many knew him to have heart problems, causing his death to be a surprise to most, Curtiss said.
“He never wanted to burden anyone,” Curtiss said. “He wouldn’t have said anything to (anyone) about his heart because he didn’t want anyone to worry about him.”
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