August 28th 2010
Deng returns to Sudan

LUOL DENG
Born: 1985
Discipline: Basketball
Career highlights: 2004-05 NBA All-rookie first team and 2007 NBA Sportsmanship award

Chicago Bulls superstar Luol Deng returned to his homeland, Sudan for the first time since he fled 20 years ago to the best reception he has gotten in his lifetime. "Welcome, welcome," they sing. "We are happy to see Luol Deng today". As they sing, they march in lilting step.

Luol Deng does not seek the attention. Great Britain's best basketball player is on a six-year $71m minimum contract with the Chicago Bulls is lionised by President Barack Obama and counts Michael Jordan as a friend.

But he also knows that his story - a child who, at the age of five, became a refugee - is rather ordinary here. Yes, he had to flee the civil war, which was in the process of killing two million people. But he was lucky enough to be able to escape with the rest of his family and end up in Britain, where the Dengs were granted asylum.

So Luol has been cautious, almost to the point of prickliness, about being feted for his first return to Sudan. But now he has been handed a megaphone to address the hundreds of children surrounding him in an uneven rectangle.

He thanks them for "the best welcome I ever got in my life ... and I'm so happy that I got it from home". Then he switches gear. "If you work hard, if you listen to your teachers, listen to your parents," he tells them, wheeling round to address the four sides, "you could be standing here".
"Every one of you guys is capable of being somebody special. Maybe you will be the president of this country and one day you gonna lead us. You gonna lead us, and we're going to have a great country." - Tim Franks

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