MARKO CHESETO is almost late to class. He enters the lobby of the social sciences building at 9:58 a.m., two minutes before his public speaking lecture begins. He is in no rush, plodding slowly amid the blur of backpacks and students. He stands out: 28 years old, long and spindly, a black man on the mostly white campus of the University of Alaska Anchorage, a Kenyan among mostly in-state students. His skin is as dark as an Alaskan winter morning; patches of frostbite char his cheeks like eyeblack. His lips are dry and crevassed. He is the most famous person on campus, a star runner. And he's pushing a two-wheeled walker.

A blond girl stops him. "Marko!" she says.

"Hellll-oooo!" he replies, voice arching.

"Can I give you a hug?"



"Okay, just don't push me!" he says in fast, accented English. She moves in gently. Marko embraces her with his left arm, his right hand steadying himself. For two months, Marko has envisioned this January morning: First day of spring semester senior year, a chance to prove that he's still the same old sweet, sarcastic, eager-to-entertain Marko. A few nights ago at a UAA basketball game, girls had hugged him in droves. Three former teammates surrounded him for a picture and posted it on Facebook. Marko had ambled around without his walker, showing off, perhaps too much.

Now Marko says goodbye to the blonde and rolls into an elevator. Before the doors close, an older woman whom Marko doesn't know juts toward the narrowing window and whispers, "We love you." The elevator rings open on the second floor, and Marko pushes to Room 251. He rolls toward the desks, then stops like a car that's halfway through a wrong turn.

Those desks -- the normal desks -- aren't for him anymore. He turns toward the lone handicap table, twists and falls into his seat straight-legged, then glances down at the shiny black shoes covering his new plastic stubs.

Those used to be his feet.

Marko chased a new life in hopes of improving his family's old one. Courtesy Marko Cheseto

DURING AN AUGUST night in 2008, Marko Cheseto walked onto a plane in Nairobi bound for Alaska. His feet were his own. He had only $100 in his pockets. His luggage totaled one bag containing two outfits. He was raised in Ptop, a village of 1,000 in the western Kenyan mountains, elevation 8,000 feet -- a foggy, damp region without running water or electricity or roads, where the Pokot dialect of Swahili was spoken. His father, Dickson, farmed, built houses and herded animals, many of which he sold to help purchase a one-way ticket to Anchorage, where the third oldest of his 11 children would attend college on a cross-country and track scholarship.

Nobody from Marko's village had ever left to go to school in America, never mind Alaska. Running was not the route out of Ptop as it was in so many other poor villages in Kenya's highlands. But running was something he always did well. After he graduated from a Nairobi two-year college in 2006 and was earning a modest living as a teacher, he noticed that runners -- inferior runners, he felt -- were leaving on scholarship for U.S. colleges. America meant money, and those who left were expected to share it to help back home.

So Marko chased a new life in hopes of improving his family's old one. He wanted, in the words of his cousin Nicholas Atudonyang, "to be a role model for the guys in his village." He enrolled in one of the running academies in Eldoret, training twice daily in the 6,000-foot elevation, and had moderate success in local races. That got his name on American recruiters' prospect lists. Michael Friess, the track and cross-country coach at Alaska Anchorage, already had one star Kenyan on his roster, David Kiplagat, and wanted to add more. Friess, a loving hard-ass who's been UAA's head coach for 22 of his 50 years, offered Marko a full scholarship, without even meeting him

At first, his parents didn't want Marko to leave, fearing that they'd have to support him again. But he argued that although his teaching job was fine for him, his father could desperately use extra income to supplement his typical earnings of $200 a year. In Alaska, Marko said, he'd work part time and send home a few hundred dollars a year. His parents acquiesced, selling farm animals and asking members of their extended family to help cover Marko's expenses. So Marko, seated in the rear, a few rows behind another runner bound for UAA, Alfred Kangogo, flew from Nairobi to Amsterdam to Minneapolis to Anchorage. All he'd heard about Alaska was that it was dark 24 hours a day. But when they arrived in the evening, the sun shining, Alfred turned to Marko and said, "Just like home."

Newcomer William Ritekwiang (No. 55) joins his cousin Marko in Alaska. Courtesy UAA

MUCH BETTER, in fact. As a student, Marko, who'd always dreamed of being a stand-up comedian, made new friends easily. He dominated his first cross-country season, and the Great Northwest Athletic Conference named him male athlete of the year. His strides were long and quick, and if he ever fell behind in a race, he'd squint his left eye -- a lazy eye -- and hit overdrive. He ultimately won three GNAC titles and was a Division II All-American twice. He became, according to Friess, "by far the greatest runner in the conference's history."

He also became the role model he wanted to be. He starred in UAA promotional videos, posed for pictures that were plastered on campus buses and mailed home a suitcase filled with used shoes to help others in his village. He roomed with fellow Kenyans Alfred and David, and the entire team started calling him Captain. "He was a lively personality," David says. "Very social."

Marko was always working too. Most of the Kenyans logged 20 hours a week at the UAA sports complex, for $7.50 an hour. Nobody knew exactly how much of those earnings each athlete sent home; Kenyan culture doesn't allow for sharing intimate information like family finances with outsiders, even close friends. Marko's job began at 6 a.m., followed by morning classes in his major, nursing. In the afternoon, he would run -- 30 minutes of peace, traversing woodsy trails that surround campus, alone to consider how his feet had created this new life of living in a heated apartment and chatting on a $5-a-month cellphone. Then he'd be out of the woods, back punching tickets at the sports complex in the evening. Many nights, he'd study until 11 p.m.

Marko and his cousin were two of eight Kenyans on UAA's 2010 team. Courtesy UAA

But the ease with which Marko and his fellow Kenyans got along with other students belied the fact that getting beyond the surface was difficult. The Kenyans were too busy being unspoken breadwinners to date much. Friess, worried that they were stretched too thin, told them they couldn't begin work at 6 a.m. anymore. They adjusted by working later. They simply carried on, each handling the pressure in his own way. David was driven, eventually graduating with a degree in finance and economics. Alfred was relentless, earning the nickname Bulldog. And Marko tried to be perfect, putting on a positive front even during the occasional month when he didn't earn enough to send any money home. After he paid rent and his school expenses, much of his $450 take-home was spoken for. Usually he was able to save up and wire $100 every few months.

In 2010, Marko persuaded Friess to check out William Ritekwiang, a cousin from his Kenyan village who'd just graduated from high school. Friess offered him a scholarship. Marko and William had grown up together, were initiated and circumcised by their Pokot tribe together, witnessed tribal fights together -- raiders carrying AK-47s, occupying their village at one point for three months. But William neither looked nor acted like Marko. He was shorter and broader. William was as quiet and moody as Marko was social, as raw a runner as Marko was polished.

Marko lent him $2,000 of his grant money for travel costs, and by August 2010, William was in Anchorage, hiking Flattop Mountain and eating Moose's Tooth pizza with five other Kenyan imports. William worked at the sports complex too, scrubbing the hockey rink's boards, sending money and burying his stress like the rest. In an isolated state in a foreign country, the only people who could relate to the Kenyans were the Kenyans, yet they rarely talked about their mutual problems. They just kept their "Kenyan secrets," as Friess says. Until they couldn't.

Michael Friess, Marko's coach, helped him cope with the aftermath of his accident. Jose Mandojana for ESPN The Magazine

MARKO'S CELL rang. It was William, calling in February 2011 with an urgency in his voice. "I have something to tell you," he said.

But Marko, as usual, was working and too busy to talk. He said they'd catch up later at the apartment they shared with Alfred. He hung up, then felt bad. William's behavior had been odd lately, manifested in his frequently saying that he was sorry and asking the others for forgiveness. For what? his friends and teammates would ask. William couldn't say. His common response was that he hadn't been "doing the right things," but he didn't elaborate. Marko and the others never pushed further. "I didn't take it that seriously," Marko says.

And Marko was having his own worries. His family, after a poor harvest and land dispute, needed money more than ever. A month earlier, he'd had surgery to correct his lazy eye. It was successful, but his recovery took him out of his routine. Without work or practice, his normal releases, he had more time on his hands to think about life. And for reasons Marko can't explain, he suddenly felt overwhelmed, unable to sleep, his head "full of stuff."

At one point, he had called his cousin Nicholas, a physician who lives near Dallas, to confide that his life was empty, that he wanted to vanish. His cousin told him to visit immediately. Without telling his coaches, Marko bought a frequent-flier ticket to Texas the next morning. That February night, in Nicholas' apartment, Marko seemed fine. But at 5 a.m., Nicholas woke up to see Marko standing by his bed. Nicholas sat for hours asking Marko every question he could think of: Was it money? Family? A relationship? Homesickness? Marko answered no to all of them. "I'm just feeling bad," he said, pacing. "Something is not right."

Marko spent less than 24 hours in Texas. When Friess learned that Marko had picked up and left in the middle of a school week, he got worried and ordered him back to Alaska. Then he turned from coach to father and arranged for him to see a counselor, who prescribed sleeping pills and referred him to a mental health facility. Within days, Marko's insomnia faded and he was back to his routine. Still, on the day William called, Marko was trying to catch up on work hours and was behind in school. So he put him off. By the time they spoke later, William said: "Everything has been forgiven. God has forgiven me. I'm good now. See you at home."

Alfred was the first to arrive at the apartment that night. But the door was locked. He had lost his keys, so he called William. No answer. Alfred then called Marko, who was on campus and had lost his keys too -- someone was always losing keys. So Marko and Alfred spent the night at a friend's place. The next morning, with no sign of William, they called the police. Officers entered through a window. When they finally opened the front door, they told the Kenyans to stay out.

William was hanging in the shower, a computer cable wrapped around his neck.

In Alaska, Marko vowed, he's all work, study and running -- and wiring his father, Dickson, and his family more money. Jose Mandojana for ESPN The Magazine

WILLIAM'S DEATH, Friess says, "sent Marko straight down." The university moved Marko and Alfred out of their apartment and into student housing. In a new bed, Marko couldn't sleep, searching for clues. He first visited William's Facebook page, but every picture had been deleted, with only one remaining status update: "I need you to forgive me." Marko asked friends, "What did he tell you?" Nothing, they said. He asked Friess, who said William seemed distracted. But suicide? Come on.

So Marko blamed himself. "I kept thinking, maybe if I'd made a sacrifice to see him when he called, things would have changed," he says. After a few days of discussing William, the distraught Kenyans established a rule of not talking about him. With everyone rushing between work, class and practice, William was an unspoken ghost, leaving Marko alone with his guilt. "I felt like it was me and only me going through it," he says.

In the following weeks, Marko began to act strangely. He was quieter. Sometimes he'd call Nicholas to repeat that life was empty; other times he'd claim to be happy. Friess decided to redshirt Marko for track season so that he could mourn; he made sure Marko kept seeing a counselor, even attending a session with the runner. He also contacted William's family and discovered that he'd been expected to send home $200 to $300 every month. When William fell behind, a relative told his mother, "Your son is no good." That got back to William, and days later he was gone. Friess didn't want to share that information with Marko. But he did instruct David to stay with him nonstop so he'd never feel as alone as his cousin had.

It didn't help. On April 2, a Saturday, Marko and David went to Walmart to get Marko's sleeping medicine. That night, Marko seemed fine to David. But in his bedroom, exhausted and weak, he swallowed dose after dose until morning. David was cooking breakfast when he heard a thud upstairs. Marko had taken most of his 20 sleeping pills and collapsed. David called 911; EMTs took Marko to the hospital. The next day, Nicholas asked what happened.

"I was tired of life," Marko said. "I just wanted my life to go away."