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The Pilgrim

The steps and the movie and what Rocky represented may have meant more to Mehdi Jabrane -- may have affected him more -- than anyone else I met there. I will long remember his smile, his zeal, his desire to walk a righteous and successful path. -- Michael Vitez

Mehdi Jabrane, 25 years old, is the son of a Moroccan father and a French mother who met working in a shoe factory in Pau, a small city in southwestern France. Mehdi grew up there in a housing project for immigrant workers. He had a very difficult childhood.

"When I was with white kids they treated me like an Arab. When I was with Arabs, they treated me like a white."

He was raised as neither Muslim nor Catholic, but simply to believe in God. It seemed everybody else in school had more money than his family, who couldn't even afford a car.

"I always felt I was inferior," he said.

His father had a drinking problem, and when Mehdi was 16, his parents divorced. He began to get into trouble as a teenager and dropped out of high school in his last year.

Mehdi first saw Rocky on television when he was young. "I was shocked," Mehdi recalled, "because a guy from nowhere made an incredible thing, becoming the world champion, a thing he never dreamed because it was so far from his reality."

Rocky Balboa became his role model. "Because I never used to talk with my father," he explained, "I always tried unconsciously to find a paternal figure. I don't know how many times I saw the film on TV, on VCR, and now on DVD, but it always makes me cry when I'm alone. It gives me hope. It gives me courage. When I see the film, I still do pushups with one hand. Thanks to those films, I always knew that I have to stay positive, even if sometimes I wasn't that good."

In 1998, an American vacationing in France invited Mehdi to visit her in Philadelphia. He mopped floors for four months to earn airfare, but the day before he was to leave, she changed her mind and told him not to come. He went anyway.

"I decided to go to Philly to make my dreams come true," he said. He ran the Rocky Steps like his fictional hero. "When I was there, I can't describe the feeling I got. It was like a new start."

Back home, Mehdi began to turn his life around. He entered a work-study program at a pharmaceutical firm, and soon he will receive his college degree, the first in his family. He has plans for an MBA.

"I know it will be difficult, but I know everything is possible."

He has returned to Philadelphia twice to run the steps again. "It's like a pilgrimage," he said. "I find my motivation in Rocky, maybe because he's a model for me. He's humble, modest, a hard worker, and he never gives up -- all the things I really want to be."

I met Mehdi when he visited the museum steps on February 28, a Sunday, about two o'clock. He came with friend Kevin Sampson. They ran together, laughing. At the top, both faced the city and raised their arms in victory. Then they hugged. Sampson's girlfriend captured it on video.

"Each time, it's the same motivation, the same desire, the same dream," said Mehdi. "When I'm upstairs, I feel great, untouchable, proud, because the road was long for me to come here. I'm not talking about the trip from France, but the road to be a good person."

Excerpted from 'Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope, and Happiness at America's Most Famous Steps' with permission from Paul Dry Books.

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