29799: potemaksonje (News) Jean Claude Bien Aime and Pierre-Louis (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Potemaksonje@yahoo.com



Jean Claude Bien Aime of Site Soley, finished with the
highest test scores in every subject in Haiti's 2006
national exams. He becomes the laureate of the
examinations of the 2006 Baccalaureate. His school is
College St Alphonse, which is in Site Soley. Will AP,
Reuters, or UN also report this top scholar who
resides in Site Soley as a "bandit," "kidnapper,"
"Chimere," and/or dehumanize Haiti's top honor student
simply as a "slum dweller," or more likely make no
mention of his name at all because he fits outside
their stereotypes for residents of Site Soley?
Congratualation to Jean Claude Bien Aime. Well done.




Discovered in a shack in Florida, Pierre-Louis is now
a Gator star.

By Mike Phillips and Louis Anastasis McClatchy
Newspapers

http://www.mcall.com/sports/college/all-bcsjan07,0,4449630.story?coll=all-sportscollege-hed



Most Gator fans remember the play that turned
Florida's season around and helped lead the Gators
into the Bowl Championship Series title game against
Ohio State.

Florida trailed 21-17 against Arkansas, which had
stormed back to take the lead and all the momentum.
That's when Reggie Fish fumbled a punt into the end
zone. And that's where most of Gator Nation discovered
Wondy Pierre-Louis, scrambling at the bottom of the
frantic pile and recovering the biggest fumble of the
year to give UF a 24-21 lead.

That play might be the snapshot that embodies
Florida's season and its wild and improbable ride to
the title game.

But Pierre-Louis' journey from dirt-covered
poverty-ridden streets in Haiti to the end zone is one
for the ages ? a road littered with doubt and gunfire,
abandonment and resurrection.

He was left alone in a shack in Naples, Fla., left
stranded in Haiti without a visa and left doubting if
he would play college football. But somehow,
Pierre-Louis made it to Gainesville, where he forged
his way onto the Gators, and where his future could be
as bright as any.

''Deion Sanders has nothing on Wondy. I'm telling you
that right now,'' said Buddy Quarles, who was the
defensive backs coach at Naples Lely High, where
Pierre-Louis was a star athlete. ''He could be in the
pros in three years. In fact, he could be one of the
best defensive backs to ever play football. It's his
fault if he isn't.''

It was Quarles who found Pierre-Louis living alone in
a tiny shanty in Naples. Quarles couldn't believe it
when he saw the way his best player was living.

Quarles said the door hung off its hinges.
Pierre-Louis' clothes were in a plastic bag. His
refrigerator had spoiled food. His kitchen was devoid
of any pots, pans or cups. He had one plate and one
fork. His shower lacked a curtain. There was no TV,
table, chairs or couch. Pierre-Louis slept on a
mattress with no sheets and just a blanket, by the
bugs that roamed his floor, which was strewn with
trophies.

''I thought it was [fine] because I was the only one
living in there,'' said Pierre-Louis, who compared the
space of the shack to someone's living room. ''I
didn't prefer anything better. It was all good.''

Quarles disagreed.

'I asked him, 'What do you have to eat in there?'''
Quarles said. 'He said, 'I've got nothing to eat.' It
was pretty sad. It was gross. It should have been torn
down. The place was falling to pieces. It was very
primal. I said, 'You can't live here ? no way. You've
got to go.'''

Quarles succeeded in convincing his wife to take in
Pierre-Louis, who found himself alone because his
older brother left Naples for New York.

They came from Haiti two years earlier, running from
the gunfire and violence that ripped the island. His
mother feared for his safety, and Dessece Pierre-Louis
sent her two sons to Naples.

''When I was growing up in Haiti, you would go outside
and you never know what could happen to you,''
Pierre-Louis said. ''I would just sleep and eat. If
you walk down the street, people just start running
and shooting. You don't know who's shooting, so it's
bad. If you go outside, you better know where you're
going.''

Things got worse at home, and during a 2004 uprising,
rebels burned down the store their mother owned in
Port-au-Prince, Pierre-Louise said.

''They would go walking around burning everything they
would find,'' Pierre-Louis said. ''They didn't only
burn our store, but other places, too. They were just
doing bad things just because they didn't want the
president.''

Pierre-Louis found sanctuary with the Quarles family,
and found freedom on the football field, where he was
a wide receiver, kick returner, defensive back, kicker
and punter.

As a junior, Pierre-Louis returned both of his
interceptions for touchdowns. He recovered two
fumbles, had 36 tackles, kicked field goals and punts,
and also played receiver. He won the Class 4A state
titles in the long jump and triple jump.

''I would do everything,'' Pierre-Louis said. ''I
would do kickoffs, then I would punt the ball like 55
yards.''

Florida coach Urban Meyer took notice, and swayed
Pierre-Louis away from West Virginia. Then Haiti
intervened. The country demanded Pierre-Louis return
after his graduation. Haiti wouldn't grant him a visa.


''I didn't want to let my son go,'' Quarles said. 'I
told him, 'Don't give up. You've gotten this far. What
you've done to get here ? that's not a normal person.'
Then I told him, 'If something happens and you get
stuck there, I'm coming after you. I promise.'''

Pierre-Louis left in June with about a 10 percent
chance of obtaining the visa to return. The Gators
sent secondary coach Chuck Heater to rescue their
prize recruit. Heater pleaded with the U.S. Embassy
and the Haitian government. He left the country
cautiously optimistic. Then Haiti granted Pierre-Louis
the visa, and he joined the team for two-a-days.

Now he's one of the reasons the Gators are in the
title game ? stronger, wiser and tougher for his
journey.

''It's kind of normal to see people get shot,''
Pierre-Louis said of his days in Haiti. ''But I'm not
going to be afraid of anything.''



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