World-class talent
Zuzana Cernianska has scored more than 1,500 kills on the volleyball court. Maciej Michalik helps out the goalie on the ice. Joao Pinho serves, volleys and backhands his way through games, sets and matches. What do they have in common?
For one thing, pronunciation and spelling of their names give coaches, teammates and sports reporters a challenge.
For another, they’re all foreign-born athletes at Utah State University.
They have traveled thousands of miles to play their sports in America and in Logan. They have left their families behind and, unlike many USU students, it isn’t feasible to visit them monthly.
“I haven’t been to Poland for five years,” Michalik, freshman and defender for USU’s club hockey team, said.
The move is certainly a culture change for the athletes. Things here are different.
The architecture is different.
“I miss old towns and historical monuments,” Czech Republic native Cernianska, said. “Everything here is new.”
School is different.
“In Nigeria, school was so uptight, but here it feels more casual,” Nnamdi Gwacham, freshman and wide receiver for the football team, said.
“It is more friendly than back home,” Cernianska said. “The teacher has a better relationship with students.”
The language is different.
“I knew English enough to pass the SAT and the Test of English as a Foreign Languge, but it was not good at all,” Pinho, a senior and tennis player, said. Pinho started his American Chapter at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn.
“It was kind of hard in the beginning because the accent in Tennessee is really weird,” he said.
The sports themselves are different.
“Most of our courts are made of clay,” Pinho said.
Sometimes they don’t even exist elsewhere.
“We didn’t have American football in Nigeria, so I saw it first when I came here,” Gwacham said. Gwacham moved to the United States in February 1999. His family is currently living in southern California.
Michalik’s family isn’t so close. In fact, they’re over 5,000 miles away. Michalik hails from the southeastern Polish town of Sanok, a town with almost 50,000 residents. His parents are still there.
Micahlik said his father is his greatest inspiration. His father was a weightlifter and soccer player who played in the junior first league in Poland.
Before coming to the U.S., Michalik played hockey for six years in Poland in an international league.
“I tried a lot of sports,” he said. “Hockey was one that I really liked. I thought I could do something, it could work for me.”
So far, it has. Michalik was invited to play for the Connecticut Junior Whalers when he was 15. Four years later, he began general studies at USU. He’s not on scholarship since he is playing for a club team, but he has sponsors in New York who are helping him pay for his education.
After his general studies, he would like to study athletic training.
“Maybe I’ll be a coach and start my own team,” he said. “In Poland or in the states – it doesn’t matter where.”
Cernianska has received the most accolades off this year’s crop of foreign-born athletes. She was most recently named WAC Player of the Week and has twice been named USU’s Athlete of the Week this season. She has also led the Aggies to a 4-0 record in WAC play.
She passed Amy Crosbie for first place on the all-time kills list for Utah State.
Cernianska, a senior majoring in marketing, plans to return home to Prague after the season.
While the athletes are changing the sporting landscape in Logan, Utah State is changing the athletes.
“It has helped a lot because education is really hard to obtain in Nigeria,” Gwacham said. “My parents like the fact that their children have the opportunity they need to succeed.”
-benwalker@cc.usu.edu