Long before Roger Garey was running through defenses for Valor Christian, he was running laps with his new mom inside a barbed-wire compound with armed guards in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
That’s where is from and where the Eagles’ junior tailback was adopted by his parents, Barb and Mark, in 2013. When the Gareys arrived in the DRC to take 3-year-old Roger back to Colorado, they were told that the government was no longer allowing out-of-country adoptions.
The Gareys, however, refused to give up.
“I’d get up early and run around the compound, because we weren’t allowed to leave (due to safety concerns),” Barb Garey recalled. “And then I’d go back to our apartment and Roger would be awake, and he’d come and run with me, too.
“We waited so long to get approval to leave, and I saw other moms who were there to adopt go home without the child they came for. Everyone has a different journey (in adoption), but that was heartbreaking to see. So I told Mark, ‘I’m not leaving. I’m going to stay here until we can bring our son home.'”
Barb ended up living with Roger in that compound for a month, before the mother-son finally got clearance to return to Colorado. It was the end of an adoption that stretched over two years, as the baby/toddler then known as Bwetusiwa (which is now Roger’s middle name) started at an orphanage and bounced around several foster families while the process played out, surviving a near-fatal battle with malaria along the way.
Fast-forward 13 years and Roger, 16, is coming into his own as a young man and an athlete. After starting at cornerback for Valor Christian during last year’s semifinal run, this fall he’s the Eagles’ No. 1 running back as the powerhouse chases a Class 5A state championship that’s eluded them
Roger’s role in Valor Christian’s ultimate goal became even more important when the Eagles’ would-be starting running back Kash Clarvoe, a sophomore transfer from Broomfield, was ruled ineligible by CHSAA to play varsity this season.
“When I got hired at Valor (in early 2025), I was told by at least a dozen people, ‘Hey man, this Roger Garey guy is special,'” said. “And when Kash didn’t get approved, we as coaches were like, ‘We’re OK, because we’ve got Roger.’
“With everything he went through in the first few years of his life, to turn out to be the spectacular kid he is now — and that’s a credit to his family, too — Roger is a kid I will definitely stand up for, believe in, fight for, because he’s got a really bright future as a player and as a person.”
Middle-school football omens
Following Valor Christian’s 49-0 win over Castle View in its league opener on Friday night after playing an arduous Garey is the leading rusher for the Eagles, with 65 carries for 312 yards and five touchdowns.
And according to Tony Lee, Garey’s high school breakout is no surprise given the many omens of his dominance as a youth player.
Lee coached Garey in middle school, on a stacked team that also featured Cherry Creek running back Elijah Cromwell, Arapahoe quarterback , Valor Christian offensive lineman Davis Moon and Chatfield linebacker Ryder Hoffschneider.
But as Tony Lee explains, “we stunk until we got Roger. His talent changed our team. And in fact, Roger Garey’s the best youth football player I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”
Lee’s Warriors High School Prep team endured a winless season as fifth graders, but when the Garey family moved from Evergreen to Highlands Ranch for his sixth-grade year, everything changed.
In one of his first scrimmages with the Warriors, against a talented Spartans team that now features a bunch of Grandview’s current stars, Lee says Garey ripped off five TD runs in a performance that prompted a Spartans mom to run on the field and start cussing at the coach.
The Warriors finished 7-1 that season, with their only loss coming in the Arapahoe Youth League Super Bowl to a dominant Cherry Creek team that beat them in the final minutes. During the seventh- and eighth-grade years, the Warriors were even better. They played an independent schedule in the latter season that included a game with the Mater Dei (California) freshman team.
And it all started with Garey.
“He would run for 200 or 300 yards a game from the second we got him,” Lee said. “He made a lot of kids on our team that were kind of good, really good. It was one of those if-you-build-it, they-will-come scenarios.
“After that sixth grade year, all of a sudden we had seven other really good kids go, ‘Hey, can we come play for the Warriors?’ Roger was the impetus for all of it because he would hammer running backs in the hole from middle linebacker. And at running back, when he didn’t have the ball, we were able to full-slide our offensive line because Roger would step up and knock the brakes off the defensive end in pass protection.”
In addition to the physical skills, Lee observed a mindset that set Garey apart, too.
“Roger doesn’t experience fear,” Lee explained. “With the way he grew up in Africa as a young child, the things he went through (that are engrained into his subconscious), he doesn’t experience fear or nerves like other kids. For Roger Garey, it’s always still just a game, and I think that’s because he went through some real-life things as a very young kid.”
Embracing his stutter
When Garey first came to America, he was bilingual in both the as well as French, the official language of the DRC. He then started to learn English, and was trilingual for a time during early childhood.
But while he emerged as a Pee Wee football star, at school, Garey had to overcome the stereotypes associated with his . He says sixth grade, at a new school in a new city, was the hardest year in that regard.
“I’d often get made fun of in classes and all that, and I used football to get out all my anger, all that aggression that built up from that experience,” Garey said. “So then when people did make fun of me, I could just blow it off at practice or in a game and not make it a whole thing.”
By the time Garey got to high school, he says he turned a corner with his speech impediment and stopped letting it bother him. He found a newfound confidence whenever he opened his mouth, which helped him make friends in an environment where he fits right in as a Black, Mormon kid amongst an overwhelmingly white, Christian enrollment.
“I just realized that I’ve got to stop being scared to speak, and just own it, basically,” Garey said. “It’s part of who I am, and that’s OK. All of my friends and this school accepts that, too.
“When I was younger, often people assumed I’m not very smart because of the stutter. So it’s all about confidence for me, and knowing and showing I’m a smart person despite some people (believing that stereotype) that a stutter is reflective of a person’s intelligence, because it’s not.”
With confidence off the field and fearlessness on it, Garey quickly earned the respect of his Valor Christian teammates. Junior nickelback describes Garey as a player that “freshmen look up to, and upperclassmen want to (emulate), and he’s someone who is always pushing others in the weight room.”
Fellow junior defensive back echoed that sentiment, noting that the way the 5-foot-9, 170-pound Garey plays above his size lights a fire under his teammates.
“There are runs where he’ll bounce off multiple defenders, big linemen and linebackers, and he’s still running and it takes three or four guys to bring him down,” Dean said. “The grit, effort and passion he plays with is exactly what we all need in order to get to where we want to go.”
Garey has college interest from CSU, Wyoming, Eastern Washington, and a few other programs, and hopes a strong junior season will lead to official offers rolling in. But as Dean alluded to, Garey is more focused on where the Eagles want to get as a whole — Dec. 5 at Canvas Stadium in Fort Collins, where Valor Christian hopes to be playing in the championship after losing to Cherry Creek in the semifinals each of the past two years.
Valor Christian fell to Cherry Creek on Sept. 18, 16-15, at Valor Stadium, in a game where the Eagles saw a win slip through their fingers in the final minutes. Depending on how the playoff bracket sets up, that game could be a preview of the championship.
Garey hopes it is, albeit with a different ending.
“I know that we’re the better team, and I know that most of the game we played better than Creek,” Garey said. “It shouldn’t have been that close. There were a lot of missed opportunities on offense where we should have taken the lead by more. There were some mis-runs that I could have done better.
“Our potential is so much better than what we showed at the end of the game (on that) Friday night. And if we play them again, it’s not going to be the same story.”
