Leaps of faith keep dreams alive

Decontee Kaye left Liberia on her mother's back, a 3-year-old refugee from the least civilized of civil wars, from gruesome brutality and massive bloodshed, from human sacrifice and inhuman atrocities.
 
She may return some day as an Olympian because of how far she can go with her feet off the ground.
 
San Diego State's junior jumper is the Mountain West Conference's reigning triple jump champion and a leading candidate to represent Liberia in the Summer Games of Beijing.
 
Her ability to remain airborne could give her country much more than she was able to grab on her way out.
 
“I remember the war and it was really violent,” Kaye said, seated on a bench by the SDSU track. “You could see bodies on the floor. We had to keep moving, being scared. We didn't take nothing. I don't even have baby pictures.”
 
Kaye's mother, Martha, remembers the rebels arriving in the capital city of Monrovia on July 2, 1990, and that she herded her children away from the gunfire so hastily that she left home without her slippers. She would lead her family on foot for more than 100 miles, from Africa's Atlantic coast inland to Guinea, foraging for food, unsure whether her husband had survived, warned not to cry when she learned of her father's execution for fear her tears could trigger reprisals.
 
“They were asking, 'What tribe are you from?' ” Martha Kaye recalled. “If you were from the wrong tribe, they killed you. When we got on the road, they said, 'Everybody single file.' If somebody among the rebels recognized you, you'd get out and run for your life. And they'd put a bullet in your back.
 
“If you fall, nobody is going to stop. They're going to walk over you. You have to be strong. All we were thinking was for us to live.”

Martha Kaye carried her daughter to safety over many miles and past some horrifying scenes, and remembers that “she was heavy.” Small wonder, then, that when members of the Aztecs track team were asked to select a word that would empower them, Decontee Kaye's choice was, “Mother.”

Kaye is one of 20 athletes competing in the United States who have been identified as Olympic candidates by the Liberian National Track & Field Federation. Should none of them meet the qualifying standards, the Beijing team would be picked by Bethune-Cookman track coach Garfield Ellenwood.

 
“I was not even aware when she was a freshman that she was not a U.S. citizen,” Nanista said of Kaye. “Once we found out about the Liberian citizenship, that opened a whole new door for her. She thinks of herself as being American, but this is a very good opportunity. She has a much better chance to make the Liberian Olympic team (than the U.S. team).”

 
Accordingly, Kaye has ramped up her training regimen and scaled back her intake of Oreo cookies and Snickers bars.

 
“This summer I was jogging with my iPod,” she said. “I would run for 30 minutes and not even know. My endurance got up. Then I started lifting (weights) earlier than everybody else.”

 
Like her mother, Kaye has a talent for focusing solely on the task at hand. When her roommates make too much noise, she has been known to decamp to her car to study. She remembers only “bits of pieces” of the violence in Liberia, but she has seen enough in her young life to recognize what's important.

 
“In war, you focus on yourself,” Martha Kaye said. “You're not thinking who was dead.

 
“People talk about war, (but) what you see on the TV is different from what you experience. Trust me, war is no good.”