African athletes boost Syracuse

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — One is a wiry 6-10 and swoops down the court, manning the middle of Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim’s famed zone defense.

The other is a foot shorter but has been just as intimidating at middle linebacker for Orange football coach Doug Marrone.

Meet Baye Moussa Keita and Siriki Diabate, Africans who have cleared big obstacles and taken different paths at Syracuse. Soccer, once the mainstay of their lives, is now an afterthought.

“Growing up, all I did was play soccer,” said Diabate, whogrew up in the Ivory Coast. “That’s all we do, and when I came here I pretty much was playing soccer.”

“I played all the time,” said Keita, a native of Senegal who keeps in touch with family by phone and over the Internet. “I loved soccer.”

At 14, Keita stood 6-6 andexcelled at soccer when the coach of his youth team encouraged him to attend a small clinic so off icials from SEEDS - Sports for Education and Economic Developmentin Senegal - could see him. They liked what they saw and Keita left home the next year to attend an academy that would prepare him for the next step - the chance to go to the United States and, through basketball, have a chance at college.

After graduating from the academy, Keita headed for the U.S. and earned a basketball scholarship at Syracuse. Keita grew up speaking French and Wolof, the native language of Senegal. When he arrived in the U.S. it took a few months at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va., to feel comfortable with English.

“Everything was just different, but that really helped me,” Keita said. “I feel like I’ve assimilated well.”

Keita, a junior, is a backup center and has become a Carrier Dome favorite with a work ethic his coaches would love to clone.

“Baye is a coach’s dream,” said Syracuse assistant MikeHopkins, who played for the Orange in the 1990s. “He’s just disruptive. He plays so hard. It’s all about team. He brings an energy and an excitement to the game. He makes things happen. It’s like he has a shot of adrenaline on every possession, how hard he plays. His energy level is unparalleled.”

Diabate’s journey has been more arduous. He was born right before his father, Souleymane, left for the U.S. to forge a better life for his family. He never saw him again until he left home to join him in 2003 in the Bronx.

“It was crazy,” Diabate said. “All I knew was from pictures and hearing his voice on the phone. The first time I saw him it was an emotional moment.”

Diabate continued to play soccer, dabbled in basketball and tried mightily to figure out his place in a new culture.

“Growing up back home, most kids have their family at home,” Diabate said. “At first, adjusting to life here was a struggle because I didn’t speak no English at all. I didn’t understand nothing in school. I had no friends. It was kind of hard.”

His life changed after he became a regular at Roberto Clemente State Park, a waterfront park along the Harlem River in a tough part of the Bronx. Recreation supervisor Bob Morris introduced Diabate to football, and he started playing two-handtouch on Thursday nights.

That, too, was a struggle at first.

“He was horrible at basketball and he wasn’t very good at football,” Morris said. “But you could see that he was very athletic. He was raw.”

Morris also coached a Pop Warner travel team of 13- and 14-year-olds and persuaded Diabate to give it a try.

“I convinced him to come out, but he wasn’t very good, so he got cut,” Morris said. “He didn’t know the nuances. He really didn’t get football. He was a soccer kid from Africa. That’s all he did was play soccer.”

The following year Morris got Diabate to try again, and at the end of the year he was MVP of the all-star game.

“He played defensive end and had four sacks,” Morris said.

Diabate then attended Herbert H. Lehman High School, Marrone’s alma mater, and was team captain his senior year. After graduation, he sent letters to different schools, including Syracuse.