Olympic runner Lopez Lomong's incredible life story continues

Beijing

In this era of here today and gone tomorrow, the Lopez Lomong story just keeps on giving.

Michael Phelps is already yesterday's news. Lopez Lomong was last week's, yesterday's, today's and generations to come. Phelps' place is secure in the record books, Lomong's in our hearts.

Tuesday was meet-the-parents day here. Rob and Barbara Rogers of Tully, N.Y., added to the tale of their son, Lopez, whom they adopted, as one of Sudan's Lost Boys, from a refugee camp in Kenya in 2001.

Little did they know that he would go on to become a world-class runner, get to the Olympic semifinals in the 1,500 meters before being eliminated Sunday, and be elected his country's flag bearer for the opening ceremony.

"We had to look it up to see what that meant," said Barbara Rogers. "Then we cried."

Said Rob Rogers, "There will be something like 30 gold medals for United States athletes here. There is just one person selected every four years. That goes way beyond a gold medal, and it is an honor bestowed on you by all the best athletes in your country."

Lomong's story has become a near legend by now -- his escape from Sudan, life on the run, life for 10 years in a Kenyan refugee camp and eventual adoption, through a United Nations program, by the Rogers family.

The stories flowed nonstop.

"We got him at the airport," Rob Rogers said, "walked down to baggage and I said we'd get his stuff and go to the car. He looked at me and said, 'You have a car?'

"We got home and went inside and showed him our guest bedroom and he said, 'That's where we all sleep?'

"So we took him upstairs to our son's room [Rob Jr. had left home for college], told him that was where he would sleep and let him rest. I got up in the middle of the night and noticed the light was still on. I went out the next day to get him a lamp, thinking he wanted light when he slept. Turned out, he had no idea where or how to turn it off. He had never had any electricity."

It was only a few days later that Rob and Barbara Rogers started to explore who this new teenage boy in their life really was.

"We had been given an age and name, nothing else," Rob Rogers said. "They didn't tell them they were getting parents. For the first weeks, he said yes to everything and went out of his way to do what we said. He thought he had gotten to us by mistake, that any day, somebody would come and take him away, or send him to the servants' quarters."

The Rogers family lives on a lake in Tully, so one night, shortly after he arrived, the new family, Barb, Rob and Lopez, went for a boat ride.

"It was August," Rob Rogers said. "We went out to the middle of the lake, went for a swim. Then we asked him to tell us about himself."

Like the rest of the world that has now heard it, the couple were mesmerized by the story.

"We told him, 'We will protect you. You are safe,' " Rob Rogers said.

Also in on the storytelling was longtime Tully High School track and cross country coach, Jim Paccia, a close friend of the Rogers family, who called to ask about the couple's new son shortly after Lomong arrived.

"Rob said Lopez had just gone out for a run, a 30K," Paccia said. "I said I'd be right over."