Executive Reporter
Nemanja Calasan is a long way from his war-torn home country, but the lessons he learned from his father still pervade his life.
Calasan was a 5-year-old growing up in Bosnia when his country became embattled in ethnic struggles. With the country's borders closed and people dying in the streets, Calasan's family, who were Serbian Patriot Orthodox, weren't sure they would survive the discrimination, or the war.
With hateful messages from Croatian Catholics spray painted on his home, Calasan's father, Dragan, built a basement in their house to protect his family. They spent a month in the makeshift space with survival at the front of their minds.
Despite the religious differences, a worried Catholic priest came to the family's rescue. All Calasan remembers is the priest's face - and the care that saved his life.
It was an early '90s Benz and was a safe escape from the war. The only problem was that Serbians weren't permitted to cross the border. Their Serbian passports were a death sentence.
With the priest at the wheel, Calasan in the front seat and his family hidden in the back of the car, they stopped at the border. Rifle in hand, the Croatian soldier asked the priest who the boy in the passenger seat was.
"That's my son," the priest lied.
The soldier then demanded to see Calasan's passport, to which the priest replied indignantly, "You don't believe in a priest?"
After a minute of thought, the solider said, "OK. Pass."
"He saved our lives," Calasan said.
WAR'S EFFECT ON LIFE
Six years later, Calasan returned to the changed, more peaceful region, which was struggling with a depressing standard of living.
"It is really a harsh situation there," Calasan said. "My parents work hard every day for very little."
Calasan had changed, too. He grew - in more ways than one. Because of his newfound size, his father suggested basketball as a way out. It sounded like fun to Calasan, but after one practice he wanted nothing to do with it.
"All the running and everything. It's not for me," Calasan said.
True to his father's personality, he wouldn't let his son quit that easily.
"He said 'You going to quit after the first practice?'" Calasan said. "I couldn't quit because of what he said. So, I came back and practiced and practiced."
For the next six years, Calasan worked on his game despite having meager equipment. The team had only four basketballs that were made of rubber - not leather - and the hoops didn't have nets. Each player had one jersey - for games and practices. The happiest moment his team had was when it played well enough to get one leather ball.
"Everybody would run after the leather one," Calasan said. "It was the only time people liked to run."
Calasan's patience and dedication with his basketball opportunities were evident, though. One night his neighbor came home to find Calasan shooting free throw after free throw. Despite the darkness and exhaustion from practice earlier in the day, Calasan was insistent he make 100 straight before stopping. The neighbor later became his girlfriend.
"That really impressed me," said Suncica Milosevic, who has dated Calasan for six years.
WELCOME TO AMERICA
Calasan's dedication landed him in Texas playing basketball at Midland College, a school known for its physical style of play.
After getting bruised and scraped in the team's first practice, Calasan doubted his move to America was the right choice.
"It was a big difference," Calasan said. "After that, I wanted to go back home."
Calasan returned to practice, as his father would have insisted, but life in America continued to present its challenges. For the first time in his life, Calasan, a junior forward for Purdue, learned English - slowly. When Purdue assistant coach Cuonzo Martin started recruiting Calasan, the language barrier became clear.
Coaches were required to fill out paperwork that was in different languages and had to be sent out of the country at odd hours of the day. In what was Martin's first recruitment of a foreign player, he described the process as exhausting, but worth it.
"You're talking about a really talented young man with physical talent who is happy to be here," Martin said.
As Calasan continues to pick up English every day, his popularity and performance on the men's basketball team grows, too. Calasan, who has become a starter, is averaging 7.1 points, 3.4 rebounds and 19 minutes a game. At a home game a week ago, there were four Serbian flags in the student section.
"Nemanja was totally stoked about that," said Marko Ljoljic, a junior in the College of Consumer and Family Sciences and one of Calasan's friends. "He loves anything Serbian."
Published in the Purdue Exponent on Feb. 2, 2008
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