The name her parents - Innocent and Charity Nenbee - chose for her is fitting, and not just because Torle was born on Christmas Day. For if there is a message Torle has for her new teammates and friends in America, it is as simple as her name.

"Be happy," she says. "You should be the happiest people in the world. You have so, so much, and you need to be grateful for it. It makes me mad when I hear people here say they are poor. They have no idea."

That is because where Nenbee came from, she had next to nothing.

"Just two sets of clothes, one for Sunday and one for the other days, and no toys or games or anything like that," she said. "Just a soccer ball, if we were lucky. Even shoes were [a luxury]."

Nenbee spent three years of her young life, from the time she was 7 until she was 10, living with her family in a refugee camp in the Benin Republic in West Africa. The family fled Nigeria when her father, Innocent Nenbee, was targeted for speaking out against a U.S. oil company he believed was exploiting the land and its people.

"It was a miserable existence," she said. "It was hard just to survive. Lots of people died."

Conditions at the camp were brutal. There was precious little food to eat, and sometimes the family of eight had to make one bowl of rice last an entire week. Other times, Innocent and his oldest son, Barine, now 22, were able to venture out into the "bush" and hunt animals or find edible plants.

The family lived in a tent until its sixth child was born, and then it moved into a one-room house.

"We still had to sleep on the floor the whole time, and still went outside to cook and use the [portable] bathrooms," Torle said, "but it was a step up, having a roof."

Three families or more shared one shower, and warm water was only a dream. The worst part, Torle said, was only boys went to school, meaning that she could not read or write - in any language - or speak English when she came to Utah and was placed in the fifth grade at West Jordan Elementary.

The move to Utah came when she was 10, after several families with the same problem appealed to the U.S. government for help and were granted political asylum. The Nenbees were placed in Utah - Torle is not sure why here, of all places - where they knew nobody.

That was seven years ago.

Since then, she has flourished. She now reads at a 12th-grade level, and gets mostly B's in her classes.

"I don't know how I did it," she said. "Those first few years, I was lost. I was in a lot of resource classes, where I got some one-on-one help, and I just made myself learn. . . . You just go home and you force yourself to do it."

Getting accustomed to American food was also difficult, although she was thankful for it.

"Too sweet," she said. "Too much sugar."

She fell in love with basketball in the eighth grade. It is her best sport and the one she wants to pursue in college.

"I'm only 5-foot-7, but I've got some serious hops," she said. "I was a post player last year, but will probably play [small forward] this year."

Cyprus coach Erin Tanner said Torle is one of the hardest workers on her volleyball team, and raised her own money to pay for club ball in the summer. Innocent found work as a janitor at a middle school, and the family, now up to seven children, moved to Magna two years ago.

Innocent and Charity became U.S. citizens last week.

Torle has only been playing volleyball for two years - "partly because she didn't like to wear Spandex," Tanner said - but has cracked the starting lineup and is one of only three seniors on the team.

"She has taught us to realize we have a lot of stuff here," Tanner said. "She inspires every player on this team, and even the coaches."

Torle placed first in the javelin at the 4-A state track and field meet last spring, after having only worked at it a couple of times, and was also a noteworthy sprinter.

"She is just an athlete, through and through," Tanner said.

One who is thankful for every opportunity she gets.