The Best American Sports Writing 2019

by Charles P. Pierce

  Later, in a fact-checking session with his immigration lawyer present, Marube elaborated, saying that Kosgei had, in fact, singled him out because of tribal prejudice. He wasn’t actually sure, he conceded then, whether other runners had their immigration documents taken or what their financial arrangements had looked like. And other, favored runners, he said, did indeed have internet access on Kosgei’s computer; it was he, specifically, who was barred from using it.

  The explanation that Marube was uniquely persecuted contradicts what he first told me, as well as what he’s told audiences as recently as April, at a UMF conference on human trafficking that he helped organize. It also contradicts two formal accounts Marube has given to law enforcement and immigration agencies.

  In 2012, Dan Campbell introduced Marube to Auburn police chief Phillip Crowell, cofounder of a faith-based, anti-trafficking organization called the Not Here Justice in Action Network and a seven-year member of the Maine Attorney General’s Human Trafficking Work Group. Sometime after their acquaintance, Marube learned about a visa available to victims of certain crimes. It wasn’t until he visited an immigration lawyer, he later wrote in an affidavit, that he told his Auburn hosts about his mistreatment by Kosgei. Thereafter, in 2014, Crowell arranged for Marube to sit down with two special agents from the Homeland Security investigations unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in order to formally disclose his circumstances in Coon Rapids.

  The agents determined that Marube’s account was insufficient to prompt a federal investigation. But in the record of his testimony, and in a subsequent signed statement accompanying a visa application, Marube was explicit that all—or, at least, other—runners with whom he shared Kosgei’s house had experienced the same exploitation and mistreatment.

  Those 2014 and 2015 documents also make no mention of the truck driver—neither the meeting in the grocery store nor the truck-stop rendezvous, both central to the escape narrative that Marube has often shared in the years since. Instead, Marube stated in both documents that his friend in Texas, with whom he’d first stayed, simply arranged a ride for him out of Minnesota. When asked about this in a fact-checking session, Marube acknowledged that he’d left out some details: he did meet a Kenyan trucker in a chance encounter at a Minnesota grocery store and then subsequently escape with him, Marube explained, but in between, he contacted his friend in Texas, who it turned out unexpectedly knew that very driver. So both accounts were true.

  Marube’s two recorded statements also suggest that he and Kosgei were unacquainted before Marube went to Coon Rapids, and that his Texas friend had arranged his Duma training. That’s what Marube told me and again later verified in a fact-checking session. But Kosgei provided me emails dated March 2010, purportedly between him and Marube, in which Marube appears to contact Kosgei just a week after arriving in the United States, reminding him of having met in Kenya and discussed visas and a potential training arrangement. What’s more, the emails allegedly from Marube seem to imply that he was unsafe in Texas, being monitored by his host and prevented from communicating. “When you are thretened [sic],” reads one, “you can fear to even leave especially if you have nowhere to go.”

  Other stories of Marube’s, not related to his trafficking, simply proved difficult to verify. There are the black bears, of course. And there’s the story Marube told me of having received a special guest pass from a supportive government minister, allowing him to stay and train at a Kenyan military barracks. A military attaché at the Kenyan embassy in D.C. rebuffed this claim. “No such individual has been granted unfettered access to and accommodation in any of our military bases or installations,” he wrote. “As a matter of fact, there is no such practice for runners in Kenya to gain free access to our military facilities, unless they are actually employees of Kenya Defence Forces.”

  A spokesperson for the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, meanwhile, said he’d found no record of Marube’s Greyhound bus detention. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, he said, but international travelers with expired legal-visitor status cannot reapply without returning to their homeland, so the agents’ supposed admonition that Marube get his “paperwork in order” would have been nonsensical. Anyone found out of status “would be processed accordingly,” the spokesperson said, and a failure to do so would likely be grounds for discipline or dismissal.

  * * *

  Though they challenge the neat narrative around which he has built an advocacy platform, none of the inconsistencies in Marube’s story, denials from other sources, or unverifiable claims necessarily mean that Marube wasn’t in some ways mistreated or even trafficked while in Coon Rapids.

  In all, I and Down East editors contacted eight former Duma runners who have stayed with William Kosgei. Only the two with whom Kosgei put me in touch had no complaints about their treatment there. All said that their movements and communications were unrestricted. All said they held their own passports and immigration documents, although two said that Kosgei had asked or offered to hold theirs. The same two said that Kosgei had sponsored their visas, complained that he sometimes threatened to have runners sent back to Kenya, and claimed he later somehow caused their visas to be revoked while they were out of the United States. Four had complaints about their financial arrangements; they thought Kosgei had charged them more commission than he did other runners, up to 18 percent, and/or that they were charged more for expenses than was fair, or more than they’d been promised. Some said he could be stingy, others lewd. Kosgei, for his part, says that managers become targets for complaints from runners who underperform. Even those runners who felt somehow wronged stopped short of saying they were victims of human trafficking.

  In 2015, a documentary called The Long Distance made a small splash in running circles. Directed by German filmmaker Daniel Andreas Sager, the English-language film follows two Kenyan runners during a season of competition in Europe with a veteran German manager. A condensed version of the film is available on the YouTube channel of German public television. In one scene, a runner receives her payout, her disappointment evident as the manager deducts for travel, room and board, his fee, and more, leaving little bottom line. In another scene, he chastises his runners for a poor performance, and in yet another, the runners debate the financial calculus of attempting an extra marathon they’d rather not run versus returning home nearly broke.

  “Modern slavery,” reads one characteristic YouTube comment. The word “slavery” pops up repeatedly in other users’ comments: “They’re treated like slaves.” “Definitely exploitation.” “Shocked, dismayed, and disgusted.” “I hope someone in the UN or similar org sees this film . . . this is almost considered slavery, these athletes are being held hostage.”

  And yet, the film’s director points out, what some viewers see as bondage, the manager and the runners considered banal enough that they allowed a film crew to document it. The manager and his wife were pleased with the film, according to Sager. “I can understand both opinions,” he says.

  Sometimes an instance of labor trafficking is obvious. Other times, what constitutes any of the three main pillars of trafficking—force, fraud, and coercion—is in the eye of the beholder. Alicia Peters is associate professor of anthropology at the University of New England and the author of Responding to Human Trafficking. She says it can take a lot of nuance and experience to identify when a crime has taken place.

  “Trafficking and exploitation occur along a continuum, so there are certainly gray areas,” she wrote to me in an email. “But case law and screening tools have added clarity over time.”

  Those tools include verification systems and in-depth questionnaires administered by staff trained to identify trafficking and distinguish it from “mere” exploitation. But a lot of communities lack those resources. In Maine, for instance, just two of the state’s 16 counties have federally funded trafficking service providers, which means the only way for most labor-trafficking survivors to be identified is by Good Samaritans or referrals f
rom government agencies or community organizations. Awareness of the problem may be on the rise, though: this April, state legislators overturned a veto to pass a law that, for the first time, defines criminal forced labor in Maine and prohibits the withholding of passports, threat of deportation, or unfair compensation for work.

  Whether Marube’s situation would meet the thresholds established by such statutes and screening tools is unclear—he has not participated in any formal victim assessment—but U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will weigh his case. In 2015, Marube filed his application for what’s known as a U visa, a class of admission granting permanent residency to victims of certain crimes willing to assist law enforcement with the investigation and/or prosecution of those crimes. The application requires a law enforcement official’s certification, indicating the applicant “is or has been a victim of” a qualifying crime and has cooperated (or might cooperate). Marube’s included his own notarized statement, as well as a certification signed by Auburn police chief Crowell.

  I asked Crowell about that document, which includes a line leveling Marube’s most disturbing allegation, one the runner doesn’t speak of in documentaries or interviews: “He is aware of some female runners who have been forced into prostitution by the running club owner.” In a fact-checking session, Marube and Dan Campbell explained this charge is based on a single instance of hearsay, of another (male) runner telling Campbell of Kosgei having propositioned a female runner to sleep with his friends for room and board. “Is there evidence of this sex stuff? No,” Marube said. So I didn’t understand why Crowell would include it, and why he’d certify Marube’s victimhood “based upon an investigation of the facts” and “under penalty of perjury” when neither the Auburn PD nor any other agency had pursued an investigation. Crowell wrote back in a statement:

  “Moninda was advised that based on what he was able to share with us, we would not be pursuing the case. This does not take away the fact that a person reported he was a victim of a crime and he was willing to cooperate . . . It is the responsibility of the governing body to determine if the testimony provided by the victim meets the threshold of issuing the U visa.”

  Marube’s application is still in the agency queue. The U visa is granted to just 10,000 applicants per year, and for the past three years, the quota was met before a judgment was made on his materials. While awaiting adjudication, applicants are legally permitted to remain in the country.

  In my last interview with Marube, I asked him how he felt about the prospect of Kosgei being formally charged and perhaps going to prison. Trafficking comes with a maximum sentence of 20 years, although it can be extended to a life sentence if there are aggravating factors like prostitution. Marube hesitated. “I’m not a judge, and I don’t want to judge,” he said. “If the law says that’s the way to go, then who am I to say no? If the law says I’m the one in the wrong, then who am I to say, also?”

  After a while, Marube told me maybe it would be better if I didn’t write the story at all.

  “Someone’s going to get hurt,” Marube said. He might be right, I told him. There’s Marube himself, of course. And there are those who’ve supported him, both formally and informally. There’s William Kosgei, who has been accused of crimes he may or may not have committed. And then there are an unknown number of trafficking victims and survivors who may not come forward if they fear they won’t be believed. For their sakes, if for no others, I have wondered at times if I should have taken Marube’s advice and not written this story at all.

  It’s those victims that Bridgette Carr fears for. The director of the trafficking center at the University of Michigan Law School worries that publicly dissecting stories like Marube’s can make it harder to prosecute perpetrators of trafficking—and harder for people actively involved in criminal investigations to get visas.

  “I know from my own cases that victims of human trafficking—even those with significant, credible, and independent evidence of their trafficking—often face an uphill battle to be seen as victims and to find safety and support,” she told me. “Our sex-trafficking clients are still more likely to be convicted of prostitution than be identified as victims.”

  Too many Americans, Carr says, have a hard time believing that human trafficking occurs here. We’re like the host of the CNN segment on Marube—incredulous that slavery could be a part of our modern experience of the world. But there can be more insidious factors, she says, like the fact that trafficking victims often don’t look the way we want them to. They are runaways or homeless. In some cases, they are drug addicts or prostitutes. They’re not as winning or as eloquent or inspirational as, say, Marube.

  “When they don’t present that way, it can be easy to lose sympathy,” Carr says. “We all want to subscribe to the myth of the perfect victim.”

  Abe Streep

  What the Arlee Warriors Were Playing For

  from The New York Times Magazine

  * * *

  Starting at noon on February 23, the town of Arlee, Montana, evacuated. Most of its 600-odd residents drove 70 miles south through Missoula and then into the Bitterroot Valley, a river corridor full of subdivisions, trailers, exclusive private communities, and ammunition stores. The crowd filtered into the gymnasium at Hamilton High School, wearing red shirts and pins bearing the faces of the Arlee Warriors basketball team, who that evening would be playing the Manhattan Christian Eagles.

  Manhattan Christian is a faith-based private school near Bozeman. Arlee is a public school on the Flathead Indian Reservation; about half the town is Salish, descendants of the people forced out of the Bitterroot in the 19th century. Manhattan Christian’s boys were tall and muscled; most of Arlee’s players were well under six feet and on the thinner side. Manhattan Christian arrived in a sleek black bus with aerodynamic curvature and tinted windows; Arlee came in a yellow Blue Bird. The February 23 game would be a rematch of the previous year’s Class C state championship, which the Warriors won. On one wall of the gym, Manhattan Christian had hung a banner reading #UNFINISHED. Arlee had their own banner, but they did not need it. They had Phillip Malatare.

  Phil is 18 and six feet tall. He claimed to be 167 pounds, but that seemed generous. His normally angular face was especially gaunt that afternoon, a result of a nasty cold. But he had a reputation in the state: for his routine triple-doubles, his no-look passes thrown around his back at a dead sprint, his unguardable pull-up jump shot, the speed and body control that made it all possible. His parents, John and Becky, arrived at 9 a.m. to watch the day’s earlier games and to stake out seats. The Malatares never sat together at games. “It just works better,” Becky said. “I like to kind of breathe.” John wore a red T-shirt adorned with a Salish phrase that translates as “I’m proud of my warriors.”

  Ten minutes remained before warm-ups. Normally, at this point, the boys would be making fart jokes or talking about video games. Now, though, the Warriors left the locker room and gathered in a hallway. A cameraman lined the players up. They were silent. The light on the camera blinked, and Phil spoke.

  “We, the Arlee Warriors,” he said, “are dedicating this divisional tournament to all the families that have lost a loved one due to—um—” He tripped up, and the cameraman asked for another take.

  “We, the Arlee Warriors,” he said, “are dedicating this divisional tournament to all the families that have lost a loved one due to the pro—due to the pressures—”

  Phil tried again: “We, the Arlee Warriors, are dedicating this divisional tournament to all the families that have fallen victim to the loss of a loved one due to the pressures of life.”

  “We want you all to know,” said Greg Whitesell, one of Phil’s co-captains, “that you will be in our hearts and in our prayers as we step onto the floor to represent our school, community, and our reservation.”

  Lane Johnson, the power forward, spoke: “As a team, we rely on each other to get through the challenges on the court or in life.” Then Isaac Fisher, the si
x-foot-nine center, said, “To all the youth on the Flathead reservation, we want you to know that we stand together with you.”

  Darshan Bolen, the sixth man and Phil’s cousin and foster brother, said, “Remember, you are the future.” Phil wrote that line. Then Will Mesteth, a co-captain and the team’s only other senior, closed it: “Please help us share this message and join our team as we battle against suicide.”

  Only about half the Warriors could legally drive, and many struggled academically. But as state champions, they were kings on the Flathead reservation. They came into the season hoping to defend their trophy; Phil and Will also wanted a chance to play in college. But by the evening of the Manhattan Christian game, the season had transformed into something else entirely.

  The videographer turned off his camera, and the Warriors retreated into the locker room. The boys could hear the gym rippling with noise. Then the drumming started.

  * * *

  Highway 93 connects Missoula, a booming college town, with Polson, on the south shore of Flathead Lake. Driving north out of Missoula, you pass a few gas stations, then wind through tight timber. A large casino emerges on the left, and then, just north of an overpass for migrating wildlife, the land yawns open to reveal a spectacular landscape. A timbered ridge rises to the east, out of which flows the Jocko River, fat with snowmelt in the spring. The highway curves through ranchland, then briefly splits to accommodate Arlee’s five-block downtown. Tourists who stop at the charming huckleberry-themed restaurant or the coffee shop and art gallery don’t always realize they’re guests of a sovereign nation: the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. One mile later, Arlee is gone.