FIL World Championship Lubes recruited Bokech to play
lacrosse. “He told me, ‘If you play lacrosse well, it might take you somewhere,’” Bokech says. But Bokech in recent months would disappear for days at a time. He was cut from the team. “I miss him. It’s something like 10 years I’ve been with him. I want him to be here. But this is for the game, until I get back, and then I will see him,” Lubes says in a voice that’s hard to hear above the drone of thunder and hail. “Right now he has some problems with his mind.”
U-GAN-DA! U-GAN-DA! Three years ago, Onen scored the first goal in the first game on African soil, playing for the Panthers in the 2011 King’s Cup. To hear the Ugandan team general manager Tyler Steinhardt describe it, some 3,000 fans at MUBS stormed the field.
At the 4:43 mark, Onen makes
history again. He sprints from behind the cage, splits to his right, beats his defender, dives in front of the goalie and scores before landing — the first goal by an African lacrosse player in the world championship. “I scored the first goal in Africa. I’m very glad to come to America, another continent, in the world games of lacrosse, and to score again the first goal,” Onen says later. “It’s a moment I will remember for a long time.” Everyone on the field celebrates like they just won the World Cup. Onen runs to the stands and throws both arms in the air while acknowledging the crowd. His teammates join him in the jubilee. U-GAN-DA! U-GAN-DA!
Dugan calls it the most beautiful goal he has ever seen in his life.
*** Ominous clouds hang overhead.
It’s a familiar sight this week, with six straight days of weather delays. Rain and then hail pelts the ground as spectators scramble for cover.
A Publication of US Lacrosse
A handheld radio crackles. Psht. Clear the field. We’re in red. Psht.
The players retreat in laughter. Fans follow them into a men’s room on the west concourse. Inside, Onen does not seem at all concerend that he quit his job to play for Uganda.
90.2
FACEOFF WIN PERCENTAGE BY GERMANY’S CHRIS MATTES, TOPS IN THE TOURNAMENT. TEAM
USA’S GREG GURENLIAN (81.1) AND CHRIS ECK (74.7) WERE SECOND AND THIRD.
“In case of anything, I can pick up and finish my school,” he says. “If nothing, I hope to spread the word of lacrosse in Africa.” Lubes can’t help but think about his best friend and roommate back home, “Bobo.” He would be amazed by all of this — the game, the crazy weather, the adulation. Fred “Bokech” Okello was kidnapped as a child from his garden in Gulu and forced to become a soldier in the LRA at age 14. He killed government soldiers and seized their weapons, both of which increased your rank in the LRA, out of self-protection. “The rebels can kill you at any time,” Bokech says in “Kandote,” a documentary on the team that premiered July 16 in Denver. Bokech managed to flee once, but was recaptured. At age 19, Bokech escaped for good during a firefight with the Ugandan army in the jungle. He eventually found his extended family in Kampala. Lubes and Bokech live together in a Kampala slum. Sometimes Lubes wakes up to hear Bokech screaming from nightmares.
Defenseman Ronald Otim spent the night with Bokech when he was cut. Otim, who was born in Kitgum, has no immediate family. His father was killed in an LRA raid. His sister, who had malaria, fainted and drowned while washing clothes by a stream. His mother died of HIV.
Otim sympathizes with Bokech. “He confided in me,” Otim says in the film. “I was with him the whole night. He cried. I told him, ‘Yes, cry. Relieve that pain. Then we start again.’”
***
After more than an hour huddled in the bathroom, word arrives from FIL officials that the game has been called off due to the weather. Officially, it’s in the books as a 17-1 loss for Uganda. But a sense of triumph
pervades the group. “We are working hard for Uganda and for Africa,” Onen says. “We have a lot of support here.” Three days later, Uganda erases a five-goal deficit, scoring the final six goals of a game against the Republic of Korea to earn its first-ever world championship win in dramatic fashion. Pato, the captain, scores the game-winning goal off a faceoff with 36 seconds left to lift Uganda to a 10-9 victory. “When he pulled back I knew it was going in. It’s a thing of fate,” Boston says. “I’m not the most religious man, but sometimes you have to believe. It was meant to be for these guys. “
It was meant to be for Uganda. It was meant to be for Africa. LM
September 2014 >> LACROSSE MAGAZINE 39
©TREVOR BROWN
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