College sports present an amazing opportunity for athletes heading into higher education to pursue degrees and continue athletic career.s Midwestern State has 350 student athletes with 13 sports teams competing in the Lone Star Conference.
Applied arts and sciences senior Svetozarevic is one of the few international student-athletes representing MSU. While many college players coming from abroad struggle with issues such as homesickness or adapting to new academic pressures, Svetozarevic uses his commitment to basketball and his devotion to his family drive him.
Svetozarevic from Niš, Serbia and now stars as a forward for the MSU men’s basketball team, but he previously played for the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors and the Portland Pilots. He mentions that the decision to transfer to MSU was the right one for him.
The D1 transfer described how he was looking for a school that would help him grow as a basketball player, but also one that would help him graduate in Spring 2025.
“Not every coach that reached out to me from other schools could do that, so they said ‘maybe we can get you done in a year and a half, maybe do an extra summer semester,’” Svetozarevic said. “After talking to Coach Justin Leslie, he basically explained what kind of player he is looking for and I just really liked what I heard.”
Before college, Svetozarevic played in Serbia’s top basketball league in Belgrade for a few years along with his current teammate, mechanical engineering junior Vojin Mastilovic. Although knowing each other before leaving for the United States, neither of them realized they got recruited on the same team.
“Coach Leslie just told me randomly, like right a few days before I committed. . . ‘hey just so you know, we got another Serbian guy, he just committed like yesterday or two days ago’ and I’m like ‘who?’ and then he told me and I was like ‘there is no way.’ Like what are the chances?” Svetozarevic said.
Mastilovic decided he was going to play college basketball in the United States, and after talking to a few other players, Svetozarevic decided he would give it a go as well.
The recruiting process for athletes outside of the U.S. is different, as international players mostly rely on recruiting agencies to put them in contact with different coaches and get offers. This takes away from the underlying stress and anxiety of reaching out for school and waiting for responses, which can ultimately make the recruiting process extremely daunting if athletes choose to handle it themselves
For Svetozarevic, this was not the case, as he received significant help from agencies that were happy to give him a hand.
“They [The recruiting agencies] heard that I was trying to find a school and after talking to so many teammates, some people reached out to me and said ‘hey we can help you find a school,’” Svetozarevic said.
Once he arrived in the United States, Svetozarevic admited there were a lot of things that he had to get used to.
“It’s really different. Being from Serbia and from Europe, it definitely took me some time to adjust, but . . if you’re a student-athlete you don’t have that much time to think about what’s hard or not hard, you have so many things to do throughout the day, so like you grow up pretty fast,” Svetozarevic said.
He mentioned that homesickness is not something he had struggles with because he had been living on his own before going to college.
“I’ve been living on my own since I was 16-17, so I have been on my own for some time, like missing home is not that big of a problem,” Svetozarevic said.
Svetozarevic says his family represents his most important motivation. He mentioned he always has his two little sisters in mind.
“My number one supporters and they are my number one motivation for everything that I’m doing. Like saying that they’re just the most important thing to me is not enough, they’re like above that,” Svetozarevic said.
After graduating, Svetozarevic’s goal is to become a professional basketball player. He wants to return to Europe and play for a top-tier club in a competitive league.
