Mini Documentary by Bryan Curiel and Holden Slattery —
Story by Holden Slattery —
Rising NBA star Nikola Vucevic loved attending USC so much that sometimes he wishes he could go back and live it all again.
He made great friends, cheered on the football team and helped the USC basketball team win the 2009 Pacific-10 Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament.
“Every day was fun,” Vucevic said, with one exception: winter break when he had to stay on the nearly-deserted campus.
Now he’s in his fifth season in the NBA, starting at center for the Orlando Magic and improving every year. Last year he averaged 19 points and 11 rebounds per game, and he just hit a game-winning shot to defeat the Los Angeles Lakers last night.
Last year, I attended another Lakers-Magic game to interview Vucevic. After the game, inside the visitor’s locker room in the Staples Center, reporters crowded around him to ask him about that night’s game and why his team had lost to the Lakers. I was more interested to hear about his experiences as an immigrant to the U.S., and an international student at USC. After all, I work for the USC Office of International Services.
To the chagrin of one reporter, Vucevic answered my questions instead of other questions about the game, saying he had great college experience and that the Trojan family is still a part of his life.
“A lot of my teammates, a lot of guys that worked for the team, the coaches – I stay in contact with a lot of people,” he said. “I was fortunate to be part of the university.”
Vucevic was born in Switzerland and raised in Belgium and Montenegro. He moved to Simi Valley, California, for his senior year of high school, hoping to get recruited by a major college. He then became a USC Trojan.
Vucevic has lived a multinational, multicultural life, but he has no doubt as to what country he calls home. It’s Montenegro. People recognize him when he goes back to Montenegro, along with fellow Montenegrin Nikola Pekovic, who plays for the Minnesota Timberwolves. In fact, Pekovic and Vucevic have talked about one day co-hosting a basketball camp for Montenegrin youth.
“When I go back they always tell me, that they’re proud of what we do,” Vucevic said. “It’s nice when you go back to a country and the people there recognize what you do and they appreciate it.”
When Vucevic first arrived in the U.S., he struggled with English and experienced culture shock.
“The language was the biggest challenge for me – learning English,” he said. “And everything was different. The way people live here, the lifestyle. It took me some time to adjust to it, but the people I had around me were so great to me, and they made it so much easier.”
Vucevic, who entered the NBA draft after three seasons at USC, said he has thought about returning to the university to earn his degree. Right now he’s focused on basketball, and his primary goal is to help his team make it to the NBA Playoffs.
“I would like to be an All-Star one day and that would be a huge honor for me – a dream of mine.”
Holden Slattery, Assistant Communications Editor, is pursuing a Master of Public Administration and is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Bryan Curiel is a Los Angeles-based documentary filmmaker and owner of Lavida Pictures.