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BY ALLISON OTTO AND JOHN AKERSMercury News
He left behind a country where his siblings cannot even afford to attend high school. He entered a land where kids staring into Gameboys bump into others on cell phones who get in the way of fancy cars that jockey for position. And that's just a typical morning at the Santa Clara High School parking lot.`Everything moved so fast,'' recalled Girmay Guangul, 18, who didn't know a sentence of English when he began the trip from Ethiopia four years ago with his younger sister and the single suitcase they shared. ``I thought I was way behind the students in the United States and that I was never going to catch up.'' Guangul found his solution on a cinder track. That was the one place where he not only could keep up with classmates but also beat them. It was there that he fit in and gained the confidence to learn a new language. It was there that he could look to the future with excitement, rather than to the past insadness. Heading into Saturday's Central Coast Section semifinals at San Jose City College, Guangul has the section's second-best time in the 3,200 meters (9:11.51) and the fifth-best time in the 1,600 (4:18.37). Tonight, he is one of six students who will be awarded a ,000 scholarship at the Charlie Wedemeyer Scholarship Awards Dinner for overcoming a personal or physical challenge. He is headed to Cal next season on a track scholarship. `Running gave me a new life,'' Guangul said. Guangul's old life was shared with his grandmother and sister, Amarech, in one-room house with three beds but no plumbing or electricity, in the town of Addisheho. His father, Getachew Sebagadis, was divorced from his mother and fled Ethiopia during a civil war when Guangul was a baby. His children cameto live with him when he had established a life in the United States. When Guangul was about 9, he was playing with a group of boys near the Tigrayan army barracks adjacent to his home. One boy found a shiny object poking out of the dirt. The others quickly formed a tight circle as the child rotated the top of the object. It was a land mine. ``And when it was all open, `Boom!' '' Guangul said. ``The guy lost his hand, and it got me in the eye.'' His left eye still carries a particle from that bomb. His vision in that eye is not perfect, as it is in his right eye. Yet he shrugged when asked if the particle could be removed, as though it were a souvenir from home he would rather keep. Guangul even missed the evenings he would pay to join other residents -sometimes crowding 50 into a room -- to watch American action movies in English on a small TV screen. "we couldn't watch a love story or anything,'' said Guangul, whose native language is Tigrinya. ``You can't understand what they're saying.'' When he came to Santa Clara High, Guangul still understood little English. He could barely remember the father he was moving in with. But he soon met another Ethiopian immigrant student, Edom Tibebe, and shadowed him everywhere, including the track. "I didn't have any place to go,'' Guangul said. ``If I wanted to go home, I would just sit. I couldn't go out, because I didn't know where to go.'' Tibebe, now in the U.S. Navy, urged Guangul to participate in a few practices. In Ethiopia, Guangul had mocked his cousin for competing in his school's annual races. But now, he obliged. On his first day of workouts, Guangul was the school's fastest runner. Coach Julie L'Heureux immediately asked Tibebe about the wiry new kid who had just sped past her. When Tibebe said Guangul was a freshman, L'Heureux's interest was further piqued. ``Girmay is the best pure distance runner that I've ever had,'' saidL'Heureux, in her 16th year at the school. ``You know that there are runners that can run like he can. But not having seen it, not having had the pleasure of coaching it firsthand, you're just in awe.'' Ethiopia has a history of great runners, such as Abebe Bikila, who raced barefoot through the torch-lit streets of Rome to win the 1960 Olympic marathon, and Haile Gebrselassie, the world record holder at 10,000 meters.Guangul claims no part of the legacy. ``Most people think I run because I'm Ethiopian,'' Guangul said. ``Not everyone who is runs. I can do this because I work hard.'' Which wasn't always the case. He disliked short sprints. He complained ofcramps. He continued showing up at practice, however, because Tibebe was there and they could converse in their native language. ``I started kind of liking it,'' Guangul said. ``It kept me busy. When I was new here, it helped me make friends. And I didn't have to think about back home. I even forgot about not knowing English.'' L'Heureux chose to nudge her young protege. ``I just said, `OK, he's a freshman, I won't worry about it,' '' L'Heureux said. ``A lot of it was just expecting a little bit more each year and not push him so hard that he wanted to quit or anything.'' Guangul did quit once, during his sophomore season, weighted down by expectations at the one-mile mark of his first CCS cross-country meet. ``There were too many people better than me,'' he said, ``so why run?'' But he reconsidered and rejoined the team. ``She wouldn't let me quit anyway,'' said Guangul, nodding toward L'Heureux. ``I don't take no for an answer,'' she said. L'Heureux enrolled Guangul in English and creative writing classes at De Anza College, picked him up for weekend practices and meets, nagged him about homework and upcoming exams and made sure he wouldn't slip through the cracksof a large public-school system. ``I felt like she was my mother,'' Guangul said of L'Heureux. ``She replacedmy grandmother. I told her everything.'' Little by little, Guangul improved as a runner. His English also camequickly; he was promoted from ESL (English as a second language) classes after three years. Step by step, his running has taken him further than he ever had imagined. Without track, ``I don't think I'd have gotten into college,'' Guangul said. ``I wouldn't have the hope of going to college, therefore, I wouldn't have worked as hard. ``Now, I'm kind of in love with the sport. It's part of me, I guess.''

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