When I went downstairs to read the LA Times this morning, my husband; with his usual hour head start on me said, "You are going to be very happy when you read the front page and very happy when you read the sports page!".
I never read the sports page...ever! Being suspicious, I pulled that section out of the stack first and screened it. On the front page, there was a photograph of a group of runners with the subtitle,"Lopez Lomong was voted by Captains of the U.S. Teams to carry the American flag into the opening ceremony". My husband had correctly predicted my reaction. I was happy, very happy!
I knew about Lopez Lomong because I heard him interviewed on NPR where he talked about the joy of making it onto the Olympic Team after dreaming about it as a child in Sudan.
The story of Lomong goes something like this: At the age of 6, during what was then called a civil war in Southern Sudan, Lemong was abducted and forced to work as a child solider. He managed to escape and walk three days where he and a few other boys crossed the boarder into Kenya where he was arrested and placed into a refugee camp. He would spend the next ten years of his young life in that camp.
The International Rescue Committee had a special program that was able to get hundreds of these boys out of the bleak refugee camps and into the US. We know them as the "Lost Boys".
Lomong was one of the lucky ones chosen to go. He was placed with a foster family in Tully, New York. He attended Northern Arizona University and won NCAA titles in the 1500 and 3000 meters.
Last year Lemong became a U.S. citizen, tomorrow he will carry our flag and participate with pride in an Olympic Dream that represents hope for the suffering people of Darfur. As a nation that prides itself with concern and compassion for others, this will be an honest moment dedicated to some of our treasured founding principles; "Liberty and Justice for all".
This is all thanks to a group of American athletes who understand that there is more to life than sports and that the Olympics are in fact a political event for the country that hosts them. Though the message may be nuanced, it is a great one to send to the world.
I have never cried reading the sports page, today was a first.
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