College offers Sudanese new hope, different fears

REGENSBURG (David Hein's Eye on the Future) – Not many college basketball fans would be especially thrilled to see Ivy League team Pennsylvania face off against the Arizona Wildcats of the Pac-12. But that would see Penn sophomore Dau Jok face off against Wildcat freshman and fellow Sudanese refugee Angelo Chol.

Calling the showdown a battle would not be fair to either, as both Jok and Chol saw first-hand genocide, torture, war, famine and disease before fleeing Sudan for Egypt and Uganda, respectively, and finally arriving in the United States. Both went to high school in the U.S. and are now college basketball players with a story of horror and hardship about which they both talk openly.

Jok, in fact, was awarded a Davis Projects for Peace award in March 2011 for founding the Dut Jok Youth Foundation in honor of his father, a top commander in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army who was killed by Arab soldiers when Dau was 6 years old. Dau, who was relocated to Iowa in 2003 by his mother after fleeing to Uganda, plans on using the 10,000 dollar grant to help children in South Sudan fight poverty and violence by combining sports and academics.

Jok and Chol however are just some of a growing list of Sudanese who fled the war-torn nation for Egypt or Kenya as well and eventually went to the United States and played high school and college basketball.

One of the top locations for the Sudan refugees looking for a new hope was Our Savior New American (OSNA) in Centereach, New York – thanks to basketball recruiter and Sudanese native Deng Leek, who played for Norfolk State and the Harlem Globetrotters.

Some of the Sudanese to land at the Lutheran international exchange school have been John Riek, Teeng Akol, Marial Dahl, Ring Ayuel, Deng Leek, Leek Leek, Steven Gatkuoth, Garang Magok and Thon Luony. In fact, OSNA had a long line of 7-footers in the mid-2000s with Ayuel (7’4”), Gatkuoth (7’0”), Riek (7’1”) and Dahl (7’2”) not to mention 6’11” Akol.

Ayuel is another tale of survival, being forced in 1999 to leave southern Sudan at the age of 11 after his village Turalei – which is also the home and burial site of former NBA player Manute Bol – was invaded and bombed during the Sudanese conflict. Ayuel and a several thousand fellow exiles – but not his family – walked 30 days and 600 miles to Kenya for refuge. Ayuel spent five years at the U.N. administered refugee camp Kakuma in northwestern Kenya before being sent to OSNA in New York.

Ayuel has since moved to play for Ohlone College in Fremont, California. And in August 2010, Ayuel spoke to his parents on the phone for the first time since fleeing Sudan in 1999 and cried after hearing his five siblings were doing fine.

Many of the Sudanese players have had solid careers. Justin Anyijong was a starter and regular contributor at Toledo until graduating in 2011. Ater Majok landed at the University of Connecticut via Egypt and Australia and in 2010-11 played with three professional clubs in Turkey and Australia.

He was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round in 2011 and is playing with Slovakian side Bemaco Nitra.

Among some of the others, Akol is a strong inside presence for Western Kentucky; Mathiang Muo is averaging double figures in scoring and more than four rebounds with Charleston Southern; and Koang Doluony is solely a bench player at Indiana State.

Doluony, however, was a star at high school in Omaha, Nebraska, which coincidentally has a large Sudanese community, estimated at 5,000 émigrés. And fellow Sudanese Mading Thok and 19-year-old Deng Gol both played high school basketball in Nebraska and Thok is due to attend Ball State next season while Akoy Agau is starring at Omaha Central high school.

But things have not all gone well for the young Sudanese in the States. A number of them over the years have reportedly been threatened of being deported if they attempted to transfer high schools while sponsor ship them from school to school. Others complained of receiving too little food and Sudan basketball player Thon Luony even told the Boston Globe in December 2009: “They treat us like slaves.”

While many Sudanese dream of becoming the fourth player from their homeland to reach the NBA following Bol, Luol Deng and Deng Gai, most are just happy to be alive.

David Hein

FIBA

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