It was the greatest moment in the village’s recent history, and Samuel was hugged and admired by his neighbors. Others brought platters of sugar-coated cookies and peanut macaroons. Ladies brought pitchers of cinnamon tea spiced with ginger and jugs of tamarind juice. Everyone wanted to celebrate Samuel’s breathtaking news. When the news of his invitation spread through the village, neighbors began gathering in front of the Sooleymons’ thatched-roof hut. There were several South Sudanese players in the NBA and they were god-like figures back home. His dream, like every other kid’s, was to play college ball in America and, of course, make it to the NBA.
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Since the age of thirteen, Samuel had been the best basketball player in the village.
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The children lived in the streets, always bouncing or kicking a ball, and the games offered a welcome diversion. Another brutal civil war was in its second year with no end in sight, and though daily life was always precarious, the people managed to make it through the day and hope for better things tomorrow. When Samuel wasn’t pounding the basketball on the dirt courts throughout the village, he tended to the family’s garden with his younger siblings and sold vegetables beside the road.įor the moment, life in the village was good and fairly stable. His father, Ayak, taught school in a two-room open-air hut built by some missionaries decades earlier.
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His mother, Beatrice, was a homemaker, with little education, like all the women in the village. He had spent his entire life in Lotta doing little more than playing basketball and soccer. He lived in Lotta, a remote village on the outskirts of Rumbek, a city of 30,000. He was hardly aware of his growth, which was not unusual for a teenager, but he did realize that his well-worn basketball shoes were tighter and his only pair of pants now fell well above his ankles.īut back in April when the invitation arrived, his neighborhood erupted in celebration. In July, when the team left Juba, the capital of South Sudan, for the trip to America, he was six feet four inches tall, just as quick but even more erratic handling the ball and no more accurate from the arc. In April, when Samuel Sooleymon was invited to try out for the national team, he was seventeen years old, stood six feet two inches tall, and was considered to be a promising point guard, known for his quickness and vertical leap, but also for his erratic passing and mediocre shooting. Gripping and moving, Sooley showcases John Grisham’s unparalleled storytelling powers in a whole new light. And the legend begins.īut how far can Sooley take his team? And will success allow him to save his family? With the Central team losing and suffering injury after injury, Sooley, as he is nicknamed, is called off the bench. He works tirelessly on his game, shooting baskets every morning at dawn by himself in the gym, and soon he’s dominating everyone in practice. There is plenty of more mature talent and he isn’t immediately needed.īut Samuel has something no other player has: a fierce determination to succeed so he can bring his family to America.
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Samuel moves to Durham, enrolls in classes, joins the team, and prepares to sit out his freshman season. Partly out of sympathy, the coach of North Carolina Central offers him a scholarship. Samuel desperately wants to go home, but it’s just not possible. His father is dead, his sister is missing, and his mother and two younger brothers are in a refugee camp. The rest of his game, though, needs work, and the American coaches are less than impressed.ĭuring the tournament, Samuel receives devastating news from home: A civil war is raging across South Sudan, and rebel troops have ransacked his village. Samuel is an amazing athlete, with speed, quickness, and an astonishing vertical leap. The opportunity to be scouted by dozens of college coaches is a dream come true. He has never been away from home, nor has he ever been on an airplane. In the summer of his seventeenth year, Samuel Sooleymon gets the chance of a lifetime: a trip to the United States with his South Sudanese teammates to play in a showcase basketball tournament.