Sooley(12)

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.





CHAPTER 8





Francis Moka was thirty-five years old and worked as a scout for the Denver Nuggets. He was born in London after his parents fled Sudan in the early 1990s. At the age of twelve he was six feet tall and caught the attention of a youth league coach who signed him up and taught him the game. At seventeen, he was recruited by a private academy in Florida to play basketball and, of course, become a student-athlete. He accepted a full scholarship to Stanford but was hounded by knee injuries and played little. He excelled in the classroom and graduated with honors. Like his close friend Ecko, Frankie, as he was known to everyone, aspired to coach Division I college basketball.

Frankie and his five all-stars strode into the spacious high school gym and were introduced to Coach Lam and his gang from the mother country. Of the fifteen, all but one had been born in South Sudan. For a moment there was the typical awkwardness as the players looked each other over, sized up one another, wondered if this or that one could really play, while Ecko and Frankie tried to keep it light. The team would have no rivalries, no squabbles, no grudges. They would compete for positions but each would get an equal chance, and the coaches demanded allegiance to the team.

Not surprisingly, Dak Marial got more attention than the others. According to several recruiting sites, he was either the third-or fourth-rated high school prospect in the nation and had already committed to UCLA. In other words, Dak was already riding the rocket his teammates were dreaming of. But his story was even sadder than most. When he was seven years old, he watched as both parents were burned alive in the family’s hut during a raid. An aunt fled with him into the bush and they almost died of starvation before stumbling into a refugee camp. Remarkably, the camp had a dirt basketball court with two backboards and plenty of balls, courtesy of the foundation established by Manute Bol. Dak started playing and grew up with the game. After six years in the camp, Dak and his aunt arrived in the U.S. where relatives were waiting.

After an hour of conversation, during which every player was required to say something, Ecko split them into five teams of three for half-court scrimmages.



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It was Ecko’s third South Sudanese team to compete in the showcase. The sites were moved each year to encourage participation by scouts, but the venues didn’t really matter. The games attracted hundreds of college coaches and their assistants, but the stands were usually empty. Few American basketball fans were curious about eighteen-year-old players from Croatia or Brazil, especially in the middle of the summer. Two years earlier, Ecko brought his team to Orlando for the first time and learned the valuable lesson that the theme parks were too strong a distraction. Sure, the players were eager to strut their stuff and impress the scouts, but they were just as eager to see Disney World.

Therefore, on the second full day in Orlando, Coaches Lam and Moka loaded the team into two long white vans and took them to the Magic Kingdom. They drove to the front gate, laid down a few rules, gave them passes and cash allowances, and said so long. See ya at six.

Ecko had been there twice and loathed the place. A long hot day in the sun, fighting crowds, waiting in lines, and the players should be ready to forget about Mickey and concentrate on basketball.

The two coaches drove back to Orlando, to the campus of the University of Central Florida. They parked near the CFE Arena, went inside, and made their way to the floor where the team from Brazil was practicing. The coach was unhappy and had a deep voice, one that boomed with what was certainly some very colorful language, in Portuguese.

Ecko and Frankie weren’t there to watch a practice, though their team would play the Brazilians in a few days. They were there to pick up their packets, team guides, schedules, etc., stuff that was all available online, but the real reason was to see their buddies. Several dozen of them were sitting courtside, in the expensive seats, ostensibly watching the action on the court but in reality just checking to see who showed up next.

The world of college coaching is small and insular and everybody knows everybody else. Gossip roars through its ranks: who’s got a new contract and who’s headed for the chopping block; who’s looking for an assistant and who wants to get rid of one; which school wants to up its game and which one is short on money; which school is planning a new arena and which school desperately needs one. And the deadliest rumor: Who’s being investigated by the NCAA?

And that was the light gossip. When the chatter turned to recruiting, everyone talked at once, but little was actually said. Secrets were jealously guarded.

Ecko’s team was getting more and more attention. The year before, the South Sudanese had placed third in the tournament, but his boys had stolen the show with their rim-rattling dunks and gravity-defying blocked shots. What the scouts and the media loved was their enthusiasm for the game, their endless hustle, their selfless play, their support for one another, and their smiles. They came from a troubled land, but they were proud of their country and wanted the world to know it.