Lopez Lomong, now the pride of Tully, N.Y., goes from war-torn homeland
to representing U.S.A. in Beijing.
Twenty miles south of Syracuse and 6,000 miles west of East Africa, a
freshly hung flag flies over the tiny town of Tully. It is on the pole in front
of the high school, just beneath the American flag, a big white rectangle with
five Olympic rings, a salute not so much to the Beijing Games that will commence
next week, but to the Lost Boy who found a home and a life and an athletic
calling, and who has made virtually everyone in his central New York state
village proud.
The
village of Tully has 924 residents and one traffic light, and one remarkable
1,500-meter runner, Joseph Lopepe (Lopez) Lomong, child prisoner turned feted
Olympian. He will begin competing in Beijing on Aug.15.
"We've never had someone in the Olympics before, and we probably will
never have another," says Eileen Baldassarre, a Tully resident whose sons are
friends with Lomong. "This is huge, because...those of us who know Lopez know
what a nice and generous kid he is."
Says
Lomong, "I came a long way, for sure, from running through the wilderness to
save my life, and now I am doing this for fun."
At
23, Lopez Lomong is a sinewy 5-11, 148-pounder and one third of perhaps the most
intriguing team of 1,500 runners the U.S. has ever assembled, a melting pot on
the move. The favorite for gold is Bernard Lagat, the defending world champion,
who captured bronze and silver in the two previous Games, running for his native
Kenya before becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen. The runner-up in the trials
earlier this month was Leonel Manzano, a Mexican-American and two-time NCAA
champion for Texas, whose father reportedly crossed the border 16 times before
becoming a legal U.S. resident.
And
then there is Lomong, a man whose journey has taken him from the southern Sudan
village of Kimotong to a Kenyan refugee camp in Kakuma, to the lakeside home of
Rob and Barb Rogers in Tully. He has seen kids in the next bed die, and has
visited his own grave. Why wouldn't he savor his Olympic achievement?
"This
is America, this is the land of everybody," Lomong says.
Lomong's story has been well chronicled, a fact that makes it no less
chilling. At age 6, while attending Mass with his family in Kimotong, he and
some 50 other children were taken at gunpoint by a government-backed militia in
Sudan's long-running Civil War, hauled off in a tarp-covered truck to a work
camp. After several weeks, three older boys found a hole in a fence, escaped the
camp and brought Lopez with them, walking for three harrowing days through woods
and wilderness, before stumbling into Kenyan border guards.
For
the next 10 years, home for Lopez - one of the so-called Lost Boys of Sudan -
was a a sprawling Kenyan refugee camp, where meals consisted of U.N.-provided
corn and came once a day. Soccer provided about the only respite from the
bleakness and boredom. The notion of anything better scarcely occurred to him
until late summer of 2000.
Lomong earned five Kenyan shillings (about seven cents) for moving some
dirt. He didn't spend it until he heard it could buy him a chance to see the
2000 Olympics on a black-and-white TV.
Lomong and a few friends walked five miles to see the Games. He came away
mesmerized by Michael Johnson, running the 400 meters.
He
prayed that God would give him a chance to do something similar. "I saw him run
so fast and I said, 'I want to run just like that,'" Lopez says.
A
year later, shortly after 9/11, an international relief effort began to place
the Lost Boys in American homes. Lomong wrote an essay describing his ordeals.
Rob and Barb Rogers, devout Christians, saw a notice in their church bulletin
one Sunday that Catholic Charities was looking for foster parents for the boys.
Before long, 16-year-old Lopez Lomong was on his way to Hancock Airport
outside Syracuse. He was shocked when the Rogerses met him in their car.
"He
walked to the airport (in Kenya), and assumed he'd walk from the airport
(here)," Rob Rogers says.
Lopez was awed by the breadth and asphalt splendor of Interstate 81, by
electricity and running water. He enrolled at Tully High, became a cross-country
and track star, before moving on to Northern Arizona, where he grew into an NCAA
champion. Lomong's American adventure was just beginning, and it was for the
Rogerses, too; they have since taken in five more Sudanese boys.
Rob
Rogers buys and sells heavy equipment, while Barb manages the 27 apartments they
own, and runs their laundromat, Suds and Bubbles. Uncertain about how a
virtually all-white community would receive their adopted Sudanese sons, the
Rogers have been heartened by the whole experience. Apart from a single nasty
epithet written by two high school kids - an incident that aroused the ire of
almost the entire school - the embrace has been universal.
"We
thought we'd be in the 'out' crowd, and now we're in the 'in' crowd," Rob Rogers
says, laughing. He pauses and talks about how life has changed since Lopez made
the Olympic team on the night of July 6 - exactly a year after he gained his
U.S. citizenship. He did it with a bell-lap charge that carried him from sixth
to third, balky ankle be damned.
"The
highlight of my life is telling CNN I couldn't talk because HBO was here,"
Rogers says.
At
Christmas time last year, Lomong went back to Kenya and Sudan for HBO's "Real
Sports" program, which was doing a segment on him. He reunited with his birth
mother, Rita, and his younger brothers. He even visited the grave his family
made for him, certain that he was dead. It was a small pile of stones that
contained a necklace and childhood keepsakes. They happily took the pile apart.
"They brought me to life again," Lomong says.
Thanks to a Tully-wide fundraising effort
spearheaded by Eileen Baldassarre, more than $13,000 has been collected to send
Rob and Barb Rogers to Beijing, along with Jim Paccia - Tully High's track coach
- and his wife, Cheryl. Rob Rogers got in the Olympic spirit almost immediately
after watching Lopez make the team, ordering an Olympic flag and banner on the
Internet for $68. The banner is on the front door, the flag flying in the front
yard.
His foster son, Lopez Lomong, a Lost Boy no longer, will soon be
surrounded by the best runners in the world. He will race hard, and whatever
happens, he will be powered by gratitude, and unencumbered by fear.
"This is payback for the people who helped me
through my childhood," Lomong says.
"Now I am running for America. I'm an
American citizen and I can go out and compete.
I'm so
thankful."
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