The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1184078
22 THE WOLVERINE DECEMBER 2019 BY JOHN BORTON K wity Paye didn't like it much when people wrote him off as a "three-star bum" upon his commit- ment to Michigan. The Wolverines' burly junior de- fensive end didn't linger on the sting. He had places to go, and much worse places from which he'd come — even if he didn't remember. His mother, Agnes Paye, gave him life and quite literally saved his life, her son freely shares. The diminutive refu- gee from Liberia doesn't even reach shoulder height on her 6-4, 277-pound offspring. She stood tall for him when he could barely stand, giving him a chance he's parlayed into playing college football at the highest level and most likely beyond. "My mom said I basically got away from death," Paye said. Death loomed everywhere during the first Liberian civil war. Citizens ran for their lives, carrying whatever they could and leaving the rest to avoid mass killings. "I've seen videos and movies of what was going on at the time," Paye said. "My mom was saying there were times when she was scared for her life. She would tell me stories of how she would wake up in the middle of the night, and her village would be on fire. "There would be rebels shooting and killing all the members of her tribe. She would go into hiding, wandering in the forest for days without food and without water. "I'm like, wow. My mom really sac- rificed a lot. She's really gone through a lot to get me where I am today. My mom is so small, I just look at her and think, wow, I can't believe you did all that. She survived the whole war, and brought me and my brother from a dif- ferent country." She survived first by making it to Si- erra Leone. There, Paye's older brother, Komotay Koffie, was born. But war soon followed to that country, directly to the northwest of Liberia on Africa's Atlantic coast. She kept moving, on to neighbor- ing Guinea, where she gave birth to her second son, to whom she gave the name Kwity, after her father. She wanted more for her offspring than what she'd seen — which in- volved far too much violence and death. She left with her sons for the United States when Kwity was only six months old. He's never met his father, but plans to do so. "At the time, it was so hectic," Paye said. "He had to go into hiding and change his name. My mom said it was horrible. They were killing off any- body that was in the Krahn tribe. He decided to go into hiding. When she goes back, she visits him." Taking advantage of a U.S. law that allowed family members to join a citi- zen working in this country, Agnes Paye went to live with her aunt and uncle in Providence, R.I. The first part of her pre-America journey involved barefoot hikes for miles through danger-laden forests. She found food where she could, avoiding detection and death. The next leg of the sojourn meant an entirely new life. "At the time, they were hunting down every member of the tribe that we were in," Paye stressed. "Being able to escape that and come here — even RESCUED AND RESILIENT Kwity Paye Thrives After Deliverance To The USA