An elegant and agile midfielder, Sacko had captained the Liberian national soccer team into the 1960s, when the nascent squad supplied the unifying thread to a country fraying at the serrated edge of tribal and political strife.
He had groomed his game barefoot, kicking tennis balls with older boys in the dusty streets of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. He attended a prestigious high school and befriended government ministers. He had a future president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate as a girlfriend, and played for the country’s best club teams.
“He was flashy,” said June Nwanna, who became his wife and the mother of his two sons. “He was very popular. All the women wanted him.”
Within two decades, those strands of glory and adulation would unspool like so much gossamer.
In the end, Sacko was wandering Newark’s streets, and spending his nights at Penn Station. [Star-Ledger]