CHAPTER 7

Ecko Lam was lounging in the bleachers with three of his players and waiting for the others to arrive. The gym, the same one they had used in April, was busy with a summer basketball league on one end and a volleyball tournament at the other. Things would clear out somewhat tomorrow, and Ecko had been promised one full court for practice. He was desperate to get his team to Orlando and to a real gym for more intense workouts. He knew that for the next three days his players would practice hard but would also be distracted by thoughts of the trip.

He saw Samuel enter the gym with his team bag and look around. Ecko realized immediately that he was taller than in April. He called him over and they went through the standard handshakes and embraces.

“How much have you grown? ” Ecko asked.

“I don’t know, ” Samuel said.

“Come on, Samuel, you’ve grown several inches. ”

“No way, ” Samuel said.

Ecko looked at the other three and asked, “Right? He’s taller? ”

“Maybe an inch or so, ” said Riak Kuol, a forward.

“You were six feet two the last time you were here, right? ”

“Yes. ”

“Come here. ”

They walked into the locker room where a narrow board eight feet tall was attached to the wall next to a chalkboard. Ecko nodded and Samuel pressed his back to the yardstick.

Ecko smiled and said, “Six feet four. You’ve grown two inches in the past two and a half months. What are you eating? ”

“Everything. ”

“Keep it up. Taller is always better. ”

· · ·

By dinner, all ten players had reported. Ecko gave them the night off and instead of a hard practice they ate pizza in the dorm and talked about life. The coach said little and wanted the boys to get comfortable with each other. They would live together for the next month, sleeping three and four to a room, eating every meal together, sweating buckets in practice, winning and losing and pushing each other to whatever limits were in their way. They would laugh and probably cry, and along the way they would discover a small slice of America.

Ecko saw basketball as one of the few bright spots in his native land, and he dreamed of returning with his players and helping to build a new nation. He asked if any of the boys had encountered violence. Riak Kuol, a Murle from Upper Nile state, said that a relative had been murdered in a village burning only two weeks earlier. The man’s family had fled and disappeared and were probably hiding in a refugee camp.

Samuel told the story of his bus ride home back in April and his close call with the bandits. Quinton Majok, a Nuer from Wau, the fourth largest city, had relatives in a refugee camp in Uganda.

They talked late into the night, and Ecko became convinced that he had chosen well. They were kids, just boys about to leave on a journey they could hardly imagine. They spoke the same English, though some better than others. Abraham Bol, an Azande from Upper Nile, won the award for the most languages. He spoke five—two tribal, English, Arabic, and some pretty good French he picked up from a missionary. His dream, after basketball of course, was to speak ten languages and work as an interpreter for the United Nations.

At midnight, Ecko shut down the party and ordered them to bed. He promised tomorrow would be brutal.

· · ·

However, the next day began not with a half hour of painful stretching, nor with a round of Coach Lam’s much dreaded suicide sprints, but with a most exciting order of business. It was Shoe Day! In the locker room, Ecko stood in front of a stack of identical bright boxes with the Reebok logo on all sides. He explained that the major apparel companies—Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Under Armour, Puma—were not only sponsoring the tournaments in the U. S. but also providing plenty of gear. In a random drawing, Reebok had picked the team from South Sudan. Some of the players may have preferred other brands, but in an instant they were forgotten. Reebok was now the favorite as they happily ditched their old shoes and began trying on the new.

Ecko looked at the pile of battered, torn, and slick-soled old shoes and shook his head. How many hours had they pounded away on dirt and mud courts? All of them should have been discarded months ago. Every decent high school player in America had a collection of basketball shoes, some of which they actually wore on the court. For his players it was Christmas morning as they opened boxes, held up the pristine Reebok Revenge models, and slowly, gingerly, tried them on. They passed them around and helped each other get the right size as all ten seemed to chatter at once.

Samuel’s old pair were size elevens and had been too tight for a month or so. The 12. 5 fit perfectly. At the rate he was growing, he wondered how long they would last.

When they were all fitted and admiring their new shoes, Ecko called them to order and began a mini-lecture on proper attire. They should notice that everyone now had the same shoe. All were identical, all were equal. In practice, everyone would wear the same shorts, socks, and shirts. Nothing else. No bandanas, no sweat bands, nothing to draw attention to the individual. They were a team of equals, with no stars and no scrubs. As a coach he would strive to keep the playing time equal, at least in the early games. However, as they proceeded, it might become obvious that a player deserved more time on the court, and perhaps another player deserved less. He would make those decisions later. For now everything was equal.

He picked up a game jersey, the same one he had shown the team back in April. “You’ve seen this before. It’s a plain gray jersey with matching shorts. No fancy logo. No name on the back. Nothing that says ‘Look at me. ’ We will wear these unremarkable uniforms to remind ourselves of the simple and humble origins of our people. These uniforms will constantly remind us of where we come from. And when we distinguish ourselves on the court, and we are asked why we wear such simple clothes, we will proudly say that we are South Sudanese. Our country is young and poor, but we will make it a better place. ”

· · ·

Two days later, the team met for an early breakfast in the dorm cafeteria. Most had been awake for hours. The excitement was palpable as they chattered away and ate cereal and toast. Ecko encouraged them to eat heartily because it would be a long day.

They wore identical yellow tee shirts with the South Sudan flag brightly printed on both the front and back. Coach Lam explained that such shirts were necessary because they would be passing through crowded airports and it was often easy to get separated.

The words “crowded airports” only added to the excitement.

Two vans unloaded them at the Juba International Airport. They were limited to one item of luggage, the vinyl gym bag they had been given back in April. Twenty pounds max because Coach Lam wasn’t about to pay extra for baggage. With the flashy black, red, green, and blue national flag also printed on their bags, the South Sudanese Under 18 team was a veritable wave of color as it filed through the airport’s lobby and began getting second and third looks.

Ecko had not embarrassed all of them by asking who had or had not been on an airplane. However, he knew for a fact that none of them had passports or visas. Given the nature of the trip, getting them from the government had been relatively easy.

As they stood at a large window and watched an airplane taxi away from the terminal, Samuel reached into his pocket, removed his passport, and stared at it, almost in disbelief. A passport!

Their airline was Ethiopian Air, a major carrier on the continent and one with an exemplary safety record. Ecko had assured them that the flight would be safe, even fun. No one had doubted this. Not a single player seemed even remotely reticent about flying.

When the Boeing 737 pushed back, Samuel closed his eyes and savored the moment. He thought of his parents and his siblings and already missed them. Would they ever have an opportunity like this?

He got lucky and had a seat by the window, and when the plane lifted off, his stomach floated a bit, much like a good case of the butterflies before a game. At altitude, the flight attendants served peanuts and sodas, and Samuel fell in love with at least three of them.

The flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, took two hours. They disembarked and killed three hours roaming the terminal, soaking in all the sights and sounds, and especially keeping an eye out for more pretty flight attendants. They boarded a 777 and flew eight and a half hours to Dublin, Ireland, where they stayed on the plane for an hour before taking off for Washington Dulles. When they touched down they had been traveling for twenty-six hours. And they weren’t finished. Because of delays, they had to hurry from one terminal to another and sprint to catch a Delta flight to Orlando, by way of Atlanta.

The thrill of aviation dissipated somewhere over the Atlantic, and when they stumbled out of the Orlando airport and into the sweltering Florida heat they had been traveling for almost thirty hours.

They folded themselves into three taxis for the ride to their hotel somewhere in the sprawl of central Florida. It was an inexpensive hotel just off an interstate, and Ecko, always budget-minded, put three and four to a room and cautioned them against complaining. They did not; they were too tired.

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