Graham Couch

Lansing State Journal

GRAND LEDGE – Ba Blamo began trembling, tears welling underneath his fierce stare.

"The only thing I ask for is to get that one chance to play college football," the Grand Ledge High School junior said. "And have my mom be able to look on TV and say, 'Your son is not the type to stay in the street and get in trouble.' "

The moment revealed the vulnerabilities, dreams and focus of a 17-year-old trying to play catch-up in a world he doesn't completely trust.

Blamo is a powerful athlete — above 6-feet, near 200 pounds, an all-state sprinter, chiseled with muscles most of us don't know exist.

The football field is his sanctuary. He'll line up at running back for the Comets at least one more time this season, when they play at Hartland tonight in the first round of the Division I football playoffs.

"The anger I have, it just bottles up," Blamo said. "And then when I'm on the field, that's when I can release it.

"I'm not a shifty back. I'm the type of back that'll drill through you and make sure you feel the pain that I'm feeling."

Blamo escaped war-torn Liberia as an infant, spent his early years in Ivory Coast, before arriving in Lansing with his mother and most of his siblings in 2004. His memories from his old life are mostly of fields and sun and dirty water, and knowing they'd been on the run, but not really understanding why.

He's heard the stories.

"I was born in a very disgusting place," Blamo said. "It was in bush, in a forest." Then he and his mother kept moving. It was either that or die.

He knows his mother saved his life as a baby by searching for a razor blade and cutting through a massive infection near his left hip. He still has the scar. She still talks of closing her eyes, praying and making the incision.

His deep-seated anger, though — and his passion for football — appear to come from his new world that began as a 7-year-old, and the years that followed trying to adapt to it.

"That anger, to me, comes from never really having any kind of solid foundation," said Gary Morris, who along with wife Suzanne, are Blamo's legal guardians. "Not really understanding the system in the United States."

Blamo's struggle is not unique. He is like many refugee children in Lansing — be it the wave of Southeast Asians who filtered through the schools in the 1980s and 90s, or the Lost Boys of Sudan, who arrived after.

For Blamo, he doesn't have a parent who understands the culture or language. Life can be confusing, everyday tasks difficult.

But it's never been better than now. He knows he's loved, even if he doesn't completely trust its sincerity. And he has a legitimate chance to go to college and, possibly, play football there. He strives to make his mother proud and one day give her an easier existence.

Hope in Grand Ledge

Blamo doesn't look or sound as if he's 17. He's sensitive to rumors about his age, bothered that people who don't know him would doubt him.

Perhaps his most mature characteristic, however, has nothing to do with his physical appearance. It's his understanding of his own weaknesses and the environment he needs to fulfill his dreams.

Before his freshman year in high school, not long after a brush with police and briefly being removed from his mother's care, Blamo was certain he wasn't going to make it in Lansing. His peer group didn't mesh with his goals.

"The thing that impressed me about Ba, he did recognize that was trouble for him," said Doris Haynes, who was assigned to work with Blamo's mother as a parental support partner through the Association for Children's Mental Health. "He did not want to go to school in the Lansing School District."

Blamo had become close with Grand Ledge football coach and social studies teacher Matt Bird, whose son played for the same AAU basketball program.

"We'd go to a tournament in South Bend (Ind.) or wherever, and he and I just connected," Bird said. "We talked and talked. He came out to a workout. He started finding rides out here."

One of his new friends in Grand Ledge was Morris' stepson, Austin Shattuck.

"He was just hanging around other kids in the neighborhood," Morris said of Blamo. "He didn't seem like he had anywhere to go."

Not long after, with the blessing of his mother, Blamo was put in the legal care of Gary, a retired corrections officer, and Suzanne, an administrative law judge.

"I actually set my mom down. I was like, 'Look, Mom, by the way we're living we're not doing so hot,' " Blamo said, asking his mother's permission to live in Delta Township with the Morris family.

"We have our father-and-son moments, but I'm mostly like a big brother to him," continued Morris, 55. "He's a little more driven than most people. It probably comes from not having anything. He's a little more appreciative. All he really asks is to have his back. He knows what he wants and he's going to do his best to get it."

How to get it, though, is where he lacks understanding. American English isn't his first language and so written comprehension and expression remain a challenge. Grand Ledge is noted for its special education program and working with emotional impairments. For Blamo, a lot of that is finding trust.

Blamo's inner circle doesn't expand much beyond his mother, Gary, Suzanne, Bird and special education teacher Beth Boyd. As he put it, he's friends with everyone at Grand Ledge, but not really close to anyone.

"I saw a thing on (boxer Mike) Tyson, and before his first title fight he started crying," Bird said. "They said, 'What is it?' 'I'm afraid if I lose, everybody is going to turn their back.' I think there's a lot of that with Ba. 'Is the support that I'm getting now real?'

"I'll get a text at 10:30 at night, 'I didn't give you 100 percent today, I apologize. Don't lose (faith).'

"I'll respond, 'Ba, I love you.' There are a lot of 'I love yous.' "

A bond with mom

Blamo thinks about his mother constantly, often bringing tears to his eyes or focus to the task at hand. Sometimes both.

Orena Blamo has never seen Ba play football. She works two jobs — hotel laundry by day, and as a custodian for East Lansing High School in the evening.

"She told me, 'Even though I'm not there with you, I'm there with you,' " Ba said. "My dream is to never make my mom work another day in her life."

Orena has lived through hell Ba can only imagine, and he often does. She's seen her uncle murdered, lost her husband and a sister, buried one child and left another behind. In all, she has seven children.

"I say (to my kids), 'I love all of you,' but Ba, during the war, he nearly died," Orena said. "When I look at him, I can see my brother I left behind. He resembles my brother so much. I see how strong he is, I see my father."

Said Ba: "With my mom, I can read her eyes instantly. I know something is wrong. Whenever I see fear in her eyes, it gets to me. I don't want her to be in that type of position. I don't want her to suffer. I don't want her to be in pain."

A future in football

In late September, Blamo proudly pulled an envelope out of his backpack. It was just a form letter from the University of Missouri's football program. But it was start. Someone had noticed.

Blamo's junior season was largely lost due to a nasty interior right ankle sprain suffered midseason at Okemos. But a big performance early against Sexton and flashes last week against Holt are examples of his promise.

"He hits all the measurables," Bird said. "He's a 200-pound kid and I think he's like the third-fastest 100-meter (dash) in the state. He's got all that, it just becomes a knowledge of the game.

"Running back is such an instinctive thing, and he has some instincts there, but also that fear of failure that can hold it back. And when he cuts it loose, you see the result ... you can see some real special things from him."

Academically, Bird said, Blamo will be "touch-and-go" to qualify for college to play at a Division I school, as he's still working his way back from a late start. But it's not a matter of intelligence or want-to, or commitment from Grand Ledge.

"He could be something unbelievable, there's no doubt," Bird continued. "He has more talent than a lot of the kids I've seen come through (this area). I remember (Sexton's) Shawn Foster (who played at Michigan State). I see a lot of that, the stride and the shoulders squared, not a lot of cuts. But it's just what's going to be next?"