[Sly Fox]

In honor of us playing the Demon Deacons today, I'm posting this article from the Greensboro fishwrap with a story on how a couple of the players are showing some character and commitment that is taking beyond their comfort zone. As someone who has Liberian friends here in Houston (and playing corner for the Buffalo Bills ... shout out to Ashton) I'm rather versed ont he situation over there. There finally seems to be some stability in the nation and many refugees here in the US are moving back over there to West Africa. Check out this story:

Deacons players help civil war orphans

By Rob Daniels
Staff Writer

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WINSTON-SALEM - In time, some of the orphans' names will fade. The 21st-century device known as a digital camera will help them recall the faces of Rainbow Town, a sanctuary built by patience and faith in a war-ravaged country where 43 percent of the population is under the age of 15.

But as they go about their business these days -- Zac Selmon and Jeremy Thompson as Wake Forest students and football players, recent Wake graduate Ashley Dunigan at work in Orlando, Fla. -- they can't forget the spirit. After a month in Liberia this summer, they had to pack up and leave it because other duties beckoned at home.

But they'll be back.

"If I had to deal with the situations that some of those kids went through, I might just curl up and call it quits," said Selmon, a tight end whose undefeated Demon Deacons play host to Liberty University at 3:30 p.m. today. "But that's not how they are. They wake up every day happy and still praising God."

The story of the unconventional way three college-aged Americans spent their summer vacation began when Selmon's parents adopted a 9-year-old girl from the orphanage in 2005. That fall, Zac Selmon was taking a religion class at Wake that dealt with nonprofit organizations, and he and his sister, former Oklahoma basketball player Shannon Selmon, decided to incorporate The Shine Foundation (www.shinefoundation.org) with the hope of helping children who had already seen too much in their lifetimes.

Children who have lived to adolescence in a country where the infant mortality rate is 24 times greater than in the United States. Children who, if they are statistically typical, will live half as long as the average American while earning around $200 a year.

"When you see those commercials on TV where people ask you to donate to this orphanage and they tell a sad story, well, it really is just like that -- the poverty, the destruction, the kids with the big bellies," said Dunigan, a former Wake cross country runner who works for the ACC out of Disney's sports complex. "Nothing can prepare you for the moment when you step out of that plane and people are begging you to buy things."
Land of war

Liberia, founded by American slaves in 1847, once was one of Africa's more developed countries. But that was before civil war broke out in 1989 and Gen. Samuel Doe, who had taken power by executing the sitting president in 1980, was ousted and killed.

There was a brief break in the violence in the late 1990s, but by the time warlord Charles Taylor was ousted in 2003, more than 250,000 Liberians had been killed. An estimated 240,000 remain exiled.

The unrelenting hostilities became the basis of "Lord of War," a 2005 film about a gun-running American (Nicolas Cage) whose weapons wind up everywhere in the conflict.

Somebody's assault rifle was pointed in the general direction of Feeta Naimen one day in 1997. With dozens of motherless and fatherless children running around in the chaos, a soldier yelled at Naimen, "Mother, take your children!"

Naimen replied that she had no children. The soldier told the woman that if she didn't collect the children and get them out of sight, he would be ordered to kill them all and then kill her.

When she agreed, Ma Feeta became unofficial guardian of 70 orphans right then and there. And eventually, with the help of various relief agencies including the Catholic church, they had a home. Or at least the start of one. There still was some construction to do.
In the beginning

Shannon Selmon came back from an internship in Liberia amazed by what she had seen at this burgeoning place called Rainbow Town. Her parents, Dewey and Kathryn Selmon, adopted one of Ma Feeta's girls, Christiana, and brought her to Norman, Okla., where the Selmon name is beloved. Dewey and his brother Lee Roy played football for the University of Oklahoma and helped bring the Sooners greatness. Now, something else was about to be built.

Shannon and Zac Selmon estimated a $60,000 fund-raising effort to cover travel costs and construction supplies would be sufficient.

They took in $93,000.

They were ready to create a school on the Rainbow Town grounds to bring at least some basics to a population in which only 41 percent of adult women are literate.

Counter culture

here's this little unwritten rule about college football. It says you stay with your team the whole summer, working out, paying the price for glory and bonding with your fellow warriors. An informal survey of ACC players in July suggested 80 percent of the football populace wouldn't think of going overseas when there are weights to be lifted on campus.

In some cases, players need to enroll in both sessions of summer school because they live off campus and can only receive reimbursement for the living expenses of a 12-month lease while taking classes. For others, it's the only way they've known.

At Wake, coach Jim Grobe tells his players to take the first summer session off.

Go home. Train there. Go to Liberia. Whatever. Come back in July.

"A man with that character is hard to come by," Zac Selmon said. "His philosophy may differ from others, but that's not necessarily a bad thing."

In all, 15 Americans made the trip. Thompson, Zac Selmon and Chicago Bears defensive lineman Tommie Harris, another former Sooner, headlined the construction team led by Dewey Selmon. Dunigan was in charge of logistics. Other operations handled dentistry and pastoral care.
Getting a job done

For the crew, the days began when the roosters awakened their home base, a Catholic compound, at 5:30 a.m.

Modern inconveniences awaited.

"There's a shower head, but the drainage system is so bad that the water would be around my shins when I finished a shower," Dunigan said.

Dodging bomb-made potholes in the roads, Dunigan made a daily trek by car into the nearest town. There, she assembled food to make lunch for the others, who were getting accustomed to a climate where the temperature can hit 100 degrees and the humidity averages 78 percent.

"The first day was the biggest challenge," Dunigan said. "Jeremy claimed dizziness."

"I experienced dizziness," Thompson retorted.

After the construction crew hauled 20-pound bricks into position, the biggest obstacle became apparent.

"There's no electricity," Zac Selmon said.

During the fighting, government forces found one of the best ways to quell rebellion was to take down power lines.

Consider this: Tennessee and Liberia are about the same size. Tennessee consumes more electricity in 42 hours than Liberia consumed in calendar year 2004. Iowa and Liberia have roughly the same population. Iowa consumes more electricity in five days than Liberia used in 2004.

So the Americans had to do it the Liberian way -- sticks for scaffolding, shoveling rock-hard soil out of the way.

But they couldn't really complain. That might have made them look far sillier than a defensive tackle who jumps the snap count.

"It's the idea of being persistent in your life," Zac Selmon said. "Most of them lost their parents in the war. That's how they got there. A few of them saw their parents get killed. But you've got to understand that God will throw trials your way and you have to respond to it. And these kids have responded so well."

Specifically, dozens of children, all of whom answer to a single adult, Ma Feeta, have forged a culture of mutual respect, appreciation and organized social structure. They're clueless about this football thing. All they knew was that well-fed, strong Americans were there to help them.

And they never forgot it.

"I didn't hear one kid complain -- not one time -- about the fact that they didn't have anything," Thompson said.

The school is 8 feet tall now and working as well as it can by the standards of a society thrown back decades by armed combat. Food grows in fields. Hope grows in minds.

Back at Wake Forest, the Demon Deacons are 4-0 for the fourth time in the school's football history. They haven't had many tough moments yet, but perhaps some of them will have context when the challenges become greater.

"As a Christian, the biggest thing I learned is: That is real faith," Thompson said. "I used to get discouraged with a lot of little things. Seeing those kids, I don't get discouraged by little things anymore. You feel bad if you get discouraged over something so small when you know those kids have so much faith and have been through so much."

Zac Selmon hopes to organize a return visit in June 2007. There is still more to do and more to learn from children whose friends learned to hold a rifle before they knew how to ride a bike.

"What can't we learn?" Thompson asked.

Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 orrdaniels@news-record.com

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