Mabany brothers find refuge at Denver South after escaping turmoil in Sudan - Denver Post

Samuel Mabany's mom watched him play football for the first time four weeks ago. She'd never been to a game, in part because she's a single mom with six kids, but also because football is somewhat new to her son, too. Twelve years ago, when Samuel was 6, his mother gathered her children and walked for seven days with little water and no food to flee a brutal civil war in Sudan. It wasn't until 10 years later that Samuel Mabany, upon arriving in Colorado, enrolled at Denver South as a sophomore and was introduced to football. Though raw, he showed steady improvement. The two-way lineman was a key component of South's stunning charge to the Class 4A state championship game Saturday — the first Denver Public School team to make the state finals in 23 years. After the game, a controversial 17-14 loss to Monarch, Mabany and his teammates spread out along the home sideline and looked up at a sea of purple in the west stands, a throng that gave the Rebels a standing ovation. "That was cool," South coach Tony Lindsay said. In the locker room, an emotional Mabany shook his head at the call that changed the game — Trevante Tasco's touchdown that wasn't in third quarter. "He was in," Mabany said. Replays showed Tasco scored, only increasing the hurt for a team small in numbers, with 40 kids on varsity. South featured four players from Africa — including Samuel and his younger brother, Patros, who is a sophomore. Many South players come from difficult family situations, and much of the roster have been forced to deal with real life, real fast. They are largely reflective of the student body. Lindsay, who took over the program in 2007, worked his magic finding players and building a state finalist. The creation of the Broncos-sponsored DPS Futures league acted as a feeder program to help boost numbers, and Lindsay has used suburban schools as a model to develop talent, getting players to work out in the summer and attend 7-on-7 passing leagues. The high school itself is a magnet school for international students, with roughly 450 of its 1,300-member student body part of its international program that teaches students English and gets their education level up to speed. Many of those students are refugees, such as the Mabany brothers, who had never attended school before coming to the United States. "So not only do they not know English, they also might not be on a grade level with academics — because of war, or because of moving from country to country — and they have not been able to go to school," said Kristin Waters, Denver South's principal. "So our challenges are that we want South High School coach Tony Lindsay watches running back Pete Williams as he goes through drills during practice Wednesday. (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

Students representing more than 60 countries and speaking 40 various languages roam South's hallways. (Samuel and Patros, for instance, speak Arabic, Dinka and English.)

"All of our students really recognize that education is going help change their lives," Waters said. "I think what that does for our English-speaking population is it helps them to understand more of what's going on in the world and brings to life what they see on the news — because their peers, their colleagues that they're sitting next to in class, have lived through some of those things."

Out of Africa

Samuel's mother, Mary Majok, remembers leaving Sudan in vivid detail. "I had to run away," she said. "When I stay over there — I can't die with my kids. So I just walked, no food, no water."

After seven days the family came to a train station. They took a train to a ferry, and that ferry took them to Egypt, and to safety. (Samuel's father, Daniel, stayed behind. His parents are separated, but Daniel hasn't been able to come to the United States because two of his brothers were killed in the war, and he's caring for their children.)

A relief group helped Mary find a house and a job. But education in Egypt is largely private, and the family didn't have enough money to send the kids to school. They also faced persecution because they were black. So Mary went to the United

Samuel Mabany (55) leaves the field in tears with Shun Johnson (1) and the rest of the Denver South team after the Rebels lost to Monarch in the 4A title game Saturday. (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

"If they accepted (us), they would let us come here," Patros said. "If they didn't, I guess you'd just have to stay there."

The family was accepted, but it was another two years before the UN helped moved Mary and her kids to the United States. When trying to determine a state to move them to, Mary was asked if she knew anyone in America.

"I told them, 'I don't know.' Because in my country, a lot of people that ran away, they don't know where they are," Mary said.

The family was moved to Tennessee in 2005. A relief group set them up with housing, and, for the first time, Samuel and Patros went to school.

"It was very exciting," Patros said. "What we'd heard about America was really good, so we were very excited about coming here. When we got here, off the plane, they were so nice to us. They had a house, car, food — they had everything for us. TV. I mean all we wanted. It was just there, waiting."

The family stayed in Tennessee for three years, then moved to Denver when Mary discovered she had a relative living here. So they moved in with her for three months before finding their own place. That's when Sam enrolled at South and soon after he bumped into Lindsay, the coach, during registration. Seeing his size, Lindsay asked if Sam wanted to play football.

"I told him, 'I don't know if I want to, because I don't like football,' " Samuel said. "He told me to come and try out and said, 'If you don't like it, you can leave.' So I told him, 'OK,' and I came and tried out and I liked it and I started for them. It was a lot of fun."

Making it big

South lists Samuel as a 6-foot-7, 255-pound defensive end/offensive lineman. In truth, he's at least 6-8 — South's nurse recently tried to measure him, but he was too tall for the school's height rod — and has bulked up this season.

Samuel, who will play defensive end in college at New Mexico, tied for the team lead with 5½ sacks and 50 tackles in addition to playing right tackle on offense. He also blocked three punts, including one Saturday.

But when Samuel first stepped on a football field, he was lost. Adrian Tyson, an assistant football coach who played at Alabama during Paul "Bear" Bryant's final four seasons, took Samuel under his wing.

"It took a lot of film," Tyson said. "It's just localizing: 'All right, you're going to be playing here, watch what this guy does. This is what your hands do, this is your stance.' I mean from the basics, like teaching Little League."

Tyson is helping away from the field, too. He often drives Samuel and Patros to and from school or practice, and helps to tutor them — even feed them.

"Boy, you talk about taking care of them. He does," Lindsay said. "That's daddy Tyson. We call him Sam Tyson-Mabany."

"(Tyson) has helped me a lot. I really like that," Mary said.

As he got better at football, Samuel realized he could use the sport to help his family. In May, he accepted a scholarship offer from New Mexico. He'll become the first of his family to go to college when he enrolls next fall, fulfilling a promise he made to his father.

"It took him a little while to learn, and he's still learning," Lindsay said. "That's why, going on to college, his uphill on that is huge. Because he is, he's still a baby at it. And he's still growing. He's going to be huge.

"He's learned a lot here, mostly (about a) team, to understand the other kids and what they're doing. A lot of stuff, he didn't know what nothing meant. It's like going to another country, and you don't know their language, and you're like, 'I don't have a clue.' But he's come on."

Patros wants to be next.

"I also want to go to college," he said. "I want to make my father proud."

Ryan Casey: 303-954-1983, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or twitter.com/jryancasey

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