Guor Marial runs for fun now. There was a time he ran to stay alive. It has been a long and perilous journey to Iowa State from the civil war that ravaged his family in his native Sudan.

Thursday night, Marial will be honored at the Frito Lay Scholar-Athlete Banquet in Hilton Coliseum. The All-American cross-country runner will receive the Eye of the Storm Award. Iowa State must now seem like the eye of the storm.

Marial’s small home village was in central Sudan, the no man’s land between the Christian south and the Muslim north. War has ravaged the people of Sudan for more than 25 years.

Among Marial’s early school memories is hiding in a wooded area for four days with his young classmates because soldiers were attacking his village.

He watched one brother die of malaria. Another sibling was shot and killed by fleeing soldiers. There was no health care, no clean water and not much food.

His family helped Marial travel to Khartoum, Sudan’s capital city. Danger was a part of daily life. You didn’t go out at night. A friend of Marial’s was kidnapped one evening at a bus stop. He was never seen again.

One night, the danger came to Marial’s doorstep. Soldiers came to the house in which he was living, and in the ensuing melee, Marial’s jaw was broken by the butt of a rifle.

Marial was in the hospital for five days. His family was being watched and was urged to get the necessary papers and leave the country. They set out for Egypt, where they lived for the next seven years.

Eventually, Marial came to the United States in 2001 to live with his sister-in-law in New Hampshire. He knew no English. He went to school in the morning and worked in the afternoon to send money to his family back in Sudan.

Marial moved to Concord, N.H., where he had a job. His prep physical education teacher suggested he go out for the track team. Marial was not initially interested.

To him, runners seemed “to be using their bodies for no reason.” This was not a surprising observation for someone who had formerly run just to survive.

Marial did try running for fun, and found his niche. A national high-school distance champion, he now is a successful collegiate student-athlete who has found a home in Ames.

His athletics credentials are impressive. He finished second in the 5,000-meter at the Big 12 Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships last month in College Station, Texas.

Tonight, however, he is being honored for a much longer journey.

Marial will be recognized by his peers tonight, as the audience will be ISU student-athletes who have also succeeded in the classroom. A total of 96 Cyclone student-athletes earned a spot on the Dean’s List, or 22 percent of all the ISU student-athletes who compete on one of the Cyclones’ 18 athletic teams. Nearly half — 47 percent — earned a grade-point average of at least 3.0.

During the fall term, 24 student-athletes had a 4.0 GPA. Among those honored were starting central soccer defender Lauren Fader, who led the team in minutes played and started all 19 matches. NCAA 10,000-meter champion Lisa Koll, who earned a bachelor’s degree in three years and is enrolled in the College of Veterinary Medicine, also posted a 4.0. Women’s basketball standout Amanda Nisleit, the versatile forward who helped key the Cyclones’ run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, earned a perfect 4.0.

There will be other awards tonight for student-athletes on their own journey. Guor Marial’s determination and optimism make him the one to lead the way this evening.

 — Tom Kroeschell is the associate athletics director for athletics communications.