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Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Family is important to Nemanja Tosic. The teenager talks to his parents every day and is close to his older brother.
But to pursue his dream, Tosic had to leave his loved ones, and everything he knew, behind. So today, Tosic will celebrate Thanksgiving for the first time in what was once a stranger's home.
The exchange student from Serbia, who plays basketball at Eagle Ridge Christian School, won't be with his family this holiday season. Instead, he'll be pursuing a dream that has been years in the making: earning a scholarship to a Division I basketball program.
Along the way, the 6-foot-8 junior is immersing himself in school, the language and American culture. He loves fast-food restaurants, like Burger King and Chick-fil-A, and is interested in new experiences, such as Black Friday.
"He says they don't have stuff like that in Serbia," said Debbie Carbaugh, Tosic's host mom and the principal at Eagle Ridge. "I don't know. That was one of the things he was kind of interested in. What's that like?"
There have been hardships. Tosic is learning the language and can't fully express himself. Plus, it took time for him to become comfortable in his new home.
Amidst the unknown, basketball has been a welcome constant. Whenever Carbaugh finds a way to relate a school assignment to basketball, Tosic perks up. And even when the lanky Belgrade native was playing soccer for Eagle Ridge in the fall, he was already looking forward to getting out on the hardwood.
"He would tell me when we were doing soccer, 'We have 21 more days until basketball,'" Carbaugh said. "He was counting down."
That passion for the game and the drive to succeed that led him to Cape Girardeau began when he was in the sixth grade. That's when Tosic began playing basketball.
Tosic grew up playing soccer in Serbia. Even now, he's a "pretty good soccer player," according to Eagle Ridge basketball coach Andrew Mellies.
In sixth grade, Tosic took up basketball like his older brother, who now lives in Russia.
"My dream is always go to USA," Tosic said.
Despite his tall frame, Tosic was a shooting guard because there were other kids on the team taller than him, he said. So he learned how to shoot and dribble, skills that may come in handy in college as he plays on the outside.
For Eagle Ridge, Tosic plays inside, but he's not a plodding big man. He can grab a rebound and lead the fast break, Mellies said.
Those skills caught the eye of Milos Bucalo, a Serbian who was then an assistant at University of Missouri-Saint Louis. Bucalo, a friend of the Tosic family, saw Eagle Ridge had a program for international exchange students, so he contacted Mellies.
"There's a family with a son that would love to play basketball in America and go to high school in America," Mellies recalled Bucalo telling him. "So they sent us the information. He submitted his application, and we found a sponsor for him."
Before Tosic came to Eagle Ridge, Mellies had seen a video of him playing basketball. But the coach, who's also the athletic director, stressed this was about more than basketball.
"To be honest, the emphasis in bringing the student over wasn't just for sports obviously," Mellies said. "It was also an opportunity to give him an education at a private Christian school. We look at it as a mission not just for that.
"We want to help him achieve his goals obviously, but there's also more to it than just that. There's more things that are there for him than just basketball."
With the paperwork sorted out, Tosic arrived in Cape Girardeau at the beginning of August, about a week and a half before school started.
His living arrangements placed him with Carbaugh, Mellies' mother-in-law.
On the court, he's been living well. Through five games this season, Tosic is averaging 23.8 points, 9.2 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.6 blocks.
Eagle Ridge has had numerous Korean exchange students and even some short-term students from Peru. Tosic is the first from Serbia, though, and the first that Carbaugh has hosted.
"We wanted to give him an opportunity to come to America, and we just felt like it was just the right thing to do for us to open our home to him," Carbaugh said.
In those first days after Tosic arrived, he and the host family began experiencing communication issues familiar to exchange students around the world. Tosic spoke English before he arrived but didn't have perfect command of the language.
"For you and I to realistically look at going somewhere new that we've never been, just somewhere where they already speak English is difficult, getting to know new people, new culture, new atmosphere," Mellies said. "But for somebody who's from another country now we're not only dealing with the linguistics of it, but we're also dealing with the cultural barriers and being away from your family and being 17 years old and leaving the country for the first time.
"That would be difficult for me to do, and I'm a grown man."
It's been a learning experience not just for Tosic, but for Carbaugh, too.
"One of the hardest things for me is we had just assumed that people understand what all our words mean and they don't," Carbaugh said. "There's been lots of lessons and talking and learning experiences of discussing, 'This is what this word means.' We just assume they understand.
"I would always tell him if you don't understand something say, 'Say it again' or 'I don't understand,' and we'll work through this. We'll get it where we understand each other."
Now, more than three months into his stay, Tosic feels comfortable in the home. He no longer immediately retreats to his room like he did early in his stay. That was his safety zone, Carbaugh said. But now he feels at ease grabbing something from the refrigerator. He's not afraid to ask for something, either. He has a shy personality, Carbaugh said, but he's coming out of the shell.
"He finally got it that this was your home away from home," Carbaugh said. "I love that he feels comfortable enough."
Soccer helped Tosic develop friendships, and he has grown close to Carbaugh's son, who's close in age to Tosic's brother.
Meeting another Serbian basketball player has helped, too.
It was purely by accident that in a city with less than 50,000 people, there are two Serbian basketball imports.
Southeast Missouri State forward Milos Vranes, a junior college transfer in his first year at SEMO, hails from the same city as Tosic -- Belgrade. In fact, Vranes knew Tosic's older brother. They played basketball in the same league back home.
But Mellies didn't find out until after Tosic made the decision to come that Southeast coach Rick Ray was bringing in Vranes. The high school coach later learned the connection between the two players.
"When Nemanja decided to come over, once we knew he was going to come I didn't realize SEMO had signed a young Serbian player," Mellies said. "When we saw that I thought that was really interesting."
A couple of weeks ago, Tosic and the Eagle Ridge squad got a chance to attend a SEMO practice. There the two countrymen spoke in Serbian, and they now talk every day. In an unfamiliar country, Vranes is Tosic's "security blanket," Mellies said. The senior Serbian gives advice on Cape Girardeau, American life and food.
"He's a good boy," Tosic said.
He's also someone Tosic hopes to emulate. Along with Stephen Curry, an NBA star with the Golden State Warriors, one of Tosic's idols is Vranes.
"He's playing Division I college," Tosic said. "I want that too."
Tosic is in 11th grade, so college is two years away. Carbaugh isn't sure where her host son will be next year, but she thinks he will be back.
She certainly hopes so. Whenever Carbaugh talks about the high schooler, praise gushes out of her mouth. He's good with young kids, mature enough to handle conversations with adults in a second language, incredibly organized, meticulous and polite.
Just like on the basketball court -- where he can shoot, dribble and rebound -- in real life he's the total package.
"He's very appreciative," Carbaugh said. "He's very thoughtful. He's mindful of the family and what's going on in the house or if we're real busy. He's very mindful. It's not all about him. He's just a good kid. That's all I can say. His parents did a really good job."
Before talk of next year can start, Tosic must get through this year. Eagle Ridge currently sits at 5-0, and Tosic has impressed on the court. After counting down the days until the season, he will savor this campaign.
"Nothing is in stone," Carbaugh said of next year, "but I think he's happy being there."
Until then, maybe he'll get to experience America's greatest shopping holiday, Black Friday?
"Oh, I don't know," Carbaugh said. "We'll see."
