Welcome to the JavaRanch, Raymond!
SelectOneMenu is the
JSF wrapper for the HTML SELECT/OPTION tags and I don't believe that they can handle multi-line text.
The dataTable tag is the JSF wrapper for HTML TABLE and cells in an HTML table will automatically wrap text onto as many lines as needed, unless you have CSS applied that prevents it.
The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.
You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.