06:11 PM CDT on Saturday, April 15, 2006

By RICK GOSSELIN / The Dallas Morning News

Penn State defensive end Tamba Hali already has been declared an All-American. All that's left now is for him to become an American.

Hali, the Big Ten sacks leader, is in the process of gaining citizenship after having spent 12 years in the United States. No player on the 2006 draft board has traveled a longer road to the NFL than Hali.

Hali was born in Liberia but fled in the mid-1990s as the country was being ravaged by civil war. Hali and three brothers and sisters escaped to the Ivory Coast, leaving their mother and a sister behind.

Hali's father, Henry, left Uganda in 1985 when Tamba was 3, moving to the U.S. He settled in New Jersey and became a chemistry teacher at Fairleigh Dickinson University. But there was no contact between father and son until 1994, when the Hali children reached the Ivory Coast.

"We got in contact with him from the airport," Tamba said. "He uses amateur radios, and that's how we reached him. He sponsored us to come to the United States."

But Henry Hali could not sponsor Tamba's mother. Both had remarried.

"When you file for a person you have to be a relative, blood born," Tamba said.

As a citizen, Tamba would be able to sponsor his mother in the U.S. He hopes to gain citizenship this year, bring his mother to this country and give her a better life than the one she has in Liberia.

"I remember the first time we ever got attacked," Hali said. "My mother was cooking and the plane came down. Gunfire erupted all over the place. Then it started happening frequently. So we went into hiding.

"My stepdad would get a car and we'd go to a village far away from the city. Sometimes the roads were hard to find. We'd spend six months there, then come back out and things would cease a little bit. Then it would start up again.

"After a couple of times, my mother thought we [children] should flee the country."

His mother numbers among the casualties of war.

"The first time she got shot was in Monrovia," Hali said. "She was with three or four friends walking. What I hear is the three other people got killed and she got shot in her knees. By God's grace she is still living."

The war is over, but the images are burned into Hali's memory.

Penn State Univ.

Penn State's Tamba Hali led the Big Ten in sacks and tackles for losses last season.

"It's hard to explain what it's like on the other side," Hali said. "When you're actually in that situation, you watch people get killed and feel that maybe today I could die. Sometimes you'd see a stack of bodies on the side of the road while you were walking.

"The kids in Liberia are not educated. You have kids carrying guns. So you have a lot of kids running around the country killing people for no reason."

Hali grew up in the United States playing basketball, but his junior high coach suggested that he try football when he got to high school. At more than 200 pounds, Hali had the size for football. And he certainly had the mentality.

"When I played basketball, all of my fouls came on offense," Hali said. "When I got on the football team, all I wanted to do was hit. That's the way it all started."

Hali quickly developed a reputation as a pass rusher. He posted 12 sacks as a junior and eight more as a senior, attracting major-college recruiters. He accepted a scholarship to Penn State.

Hali continued to excel at the higher level. He started at Penn State for three seasons and by his senior year was the Big Ten's best pass rusher, with 11 sacks.

Now he projects as a first-round draft selection. He talks to his mother by telephone a couple times per week but has unsuccessfully tried to explain to her the passion he has developed for football and success he's enjoyed in the American sport.

"She has no clue what's going on," Hali said. "She tells me it sounds rough and tough. It might be like soccer to her. But she's going to go from living in a hut to a nice home, which she's never lived in before. I hope that would explain a lot."

E-mail rgosselin@dallasnews.com

When: April 29-30

Where: Radio City Music Hall, New York

TV: ESPN, ESPN2

2005 statistics at Penn State

Games: 12

Tackles: 65 (27 solo)

Tackles for losses: 17 (86 yards)

Sacks: 11 (79 yards)

Forced fumbles: 1

Notable: Led the Big Ten in sacks and tackles for losses.