19 year old Sudanese refugee Barnaba Madol arrived in this country five years ago.
He had a 4th grade education and spoke no English.
Last fall on this program we caught up with him as he tried to make his way in a nearly all-white high school in New Hampshire.
TAPE: I can't speak English or anything. I use my weapon which is soccer. And soccer, soccer does the talking for you.
Barnaba spent the past year at an elite prep school in New Hampshire trying to get into college on a soccer scholarship.
But New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein reports this past school year Barnaba's come to realize-maybe- soccer isn't enough.
Dan Gorenstein: When Barnaba began at the New Hampton School his grades were mediocre, his test scores worse.
But still he didn't feel any pressure to succeed in the classroom.
Barnaba Madol (BM): 5:12 I'm supposed to be more concerned about academics, but that didn't cross my mind at all. I was more concerned about soccer. Was I going to start? Was I going to play?
DG: Barnaba knew his one year soccer scholarship to this school in the quiet foothills of the White Mountains was his best shot at college.
But that was going to be difficult.
English teacher Harrison Golden.
T.5
Harrison Golden (HG): 7:58 ...the first paper was, he did the assignment, but it was so poorly done, I wouldn't put a grade on it.
T.2
BM: 11:23 when I was in English, people are just good....they could write, they knew what was going on.....I was kind of lost when the teacher talked, especially in English class.
DG: Barnaba's difficulties with English are understandable.
At age 12 he and his family fled Sudan after his father was forced into hiding for his political activities.
He spent two years in an Egyptian refugee camp, and arrived in New Hampshire at 15 speaking only Dinka and Arabic.
Even after four years of public high school and well into a fifth year of private high school Barnaba sometimes Barnaba found his classroom experience humiliating.
He thinks back on a debate where he had to prove Germany was responsible for World War I.
T.7
BM: 24:30... the guy speaking about Germany was over the top and he was beating me on the words. So I just gave up. And the teacher looked at me and said, 'I know you can do better.' And I said, 'no I can't.'...I didn't know what to say. I was stunned. And that's when it hit me, 'if I knew how to speak like them.'
DG: As unsteady as his academic life was, his footing on the soccer field was as graceful as ever.
He led the team to its first playoff tournament in years.
He made the All-Star team.
Coach Manny Britto says his star player attracted soccer coaches from across the Northeast.
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Manny Brito: 19:45....Williams College wanted him. the coach called me, was very impressed with him. Ohio Wesleyan. Hobart. American International University....you name it, a bunch of schools...the problem was his grades from before.
5:49 sfx: flipping
DG: Barnaba sits on his dorm bed and is flipping through a binder of his vocabulary words.
His various #4 game jerseys frame his half of the room.
BM: 6:32 here we go....this is all vocabulary words, enormous, palatial...do you know what that is?....big grand, immense....chateau. what's that word....
DG: Barnaba has spent a year grasping for definitions like these and choking out complete sentences.
The hard work helped him pull his GPA up from a solid C in his senior year to a low B at New Hampton.
And most importantly- he got into college.
This fall he's off to American International College in Massachusetts on a four year soccer scholarship.
But still he struggles.
BM: 23:28 what is killing me right now is the vocabs....I just can't get it. I can't learn. Different words, it's just too hard for me to get a different word...there is just a lot that I don't know. It's worrying me a lot.
DG: Barnaba's taken the SATs four or five times now.
He's waiting for his most recent results.
If he doesn't make a modest score he won't qualify to play collegiate soccer his freshman year.
The thought of that makes him anxious.
At New Hampton Barnaba came to know very wealthy kids with almost unlimited options.
But he says he's not jealous of that.
Barnaba says what he envies are their words.
For NPR News, I'm DG in Concord, NH.
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