The loud booming sound woke Zoran Grabovac out of a deep sleep. The nine-year-old ran to the window and pulled open the curtains to see flames streaking across the sky. For the first time in his life, Grabovac knew what war looked like.
Grabovac, a fifth-year student pursuing his MBA from Ball State University, is in his fourth season as a Ball State Volleyball player, and at 6 feet 8 inches tall, he towers above his competition.
Born in Trebinje, Bosnia, during a time of conflict in the former Yugoslavia, Grabovac had a Serbian mother and a Croatian father. This mixed family contributed to his appreciation for diversity, even though most people living in the three countries were almost culturally identical.
THE WAR
"Life changed kind of quickly," Grabovac said. "You have friends, and you were playing soccer every day with them. You get in arguments and fights just like kids do. But then they're calling you names because you're a different ethnicity, and they're seeing you differently. It was hard to understand what was going on,"
He described children as being similar to sponges, listening to "grown-ups" talking about war and history.
"The kids absorb everything they say and begin making their own judgments," he said.
Grabovac remembers receiving threatening phone calls as the war was erupting.
"We got phone calls late at night saying 'If you're not gone by the sunrise, we're going to throw grenades in the apartment!'" he said. "It was terrifying."
During the war, family members fought and marriages broke up over what seemed to Grabovac to be nothing. People discriminated against each other, and Grabovac and his family were considered "minorities" despite the fact that all of the people, according to Grabovac, were basically the same. It hurt to withstand such treatment, but he kept an open mind about the former Yugoslavia and all of its people.
"I knew there was a kid hundreds of miles away who people were doing the same thing to," he said. "It's happening with both sides."
The residents in Grabovac's building and surrounding buildings lived in the basements to avoid dangerous situations. They divided the basement into different living compartments - about three meters by five meters - for each family. During the war, Grabovac's cousin was sent to Vienna to escape the war. A young man in his early 20s, the cousin decided when he got to Vienna that he was going back home to fight. When he returned to his native land, a sniper shot and killed him.
Grabovac's cousin wasn't the only member of his family to get involved in the war; His father was drafted and fought against what seemed to be his own people.
One day in combat was enough to make the family leave the war zone.
"He was white like the wall," Grabovac said. "He put his gun down and went to his room. He looked like he saw a ghost. He saw grenades and people dying and just couldn't believe it."
The family decided to go live with some relatives in Novi Sad, Serbia, but they didn't feel comfortable leaving their apartment unoccupied. The destruction had caused people to lose their homes, and immigrants were flooding the area.
"We knew if we left the apartment empty, we wouldn't get it back," he said.
A family that had lost its home agreed to live in the apartment until the Grabovacs came back after the war. "My parents told them, you know, 'when we come back, we can live here together,'" Grabovac said.
Grabovac and his parents set off to Novi Sad, taking only what clothing could fit inside their suitcases and leaving everything else behind.
COMING TO AMERICA
The war ended in 1995, but the difficult times continued for Grabovac and his family. They traveled back to Trebenje to find that the other family refused to give them back their house or anything in it.
The economy was struggling, and, according to Grabovac, the outlook of the future was horrible, especially for young people.
"It was corrupt," Grabovac said. "People were fighting for power. They didn't care about economic policies to better the country. They were just trying to get rich. One couple created a bank, and people invested their money in it. Then the couple just took the money and left the country. Things like this were happening."
The family knew they were going to leave, and were deciding between a few different countries including Denmark, Australia and Canada, the family's first choice.
"My parents heard good stuff about Canada and how they treated immigrants," Grabovac said. "We applied to go to Canada, we couldn't get the papers to go."
They waited for years for the documents to be processed so that they could move to Canada. They were growing impatient when a relative living in Des Moines, Iowa recommended that they move to the United States.
She filled out papers saying that she had family in need, and the government approved it.
"Within two months, we had the paperwork to come to the U.S.," he said. "It's kind of funny, after one week of living here, we got a call from my uncle in Serbia saying that we got the papers to go into Canada."
AMERICAN SCHOOLS
By the time he got to the United States, Grabovac was a sophomore in high school. Before joining American classes, he took tests to determine his level of education. Although he was able to understand most of the English spoken to him, it was difficult for him to form sentences. His poor score required him to be enrolled in ESL classes. As for the math portion, he did better than his teachers expected, he said.
"Back in Serbia I was solving complex problems," Grabovac said. "And here I was solving for 'x' when 'y' was eight."
The education system in the United States is very different from the way things are taught in Europe, Grabovac said.
"They're definitely getting a better education in Europe," Grabovac said.
"Professors ask more of their students, and the students are learning more difficult material earlier."
He began his education at age seven, and began taking foreign languages by the time he was in third grade. Between fifth and eighth grade, he took courses such as chemistry, biology, physics, foreign languages and advanced history, he said. The classes are to prepare students for the admissions tests into high schools.
By law in Serbia, students are required to finish eighth grade. After that, they can choose whether to continue their education.
High school in Europe is divided into professions, so students are forced to choose what they want to pursue for the rest of their lives. Grabovac attended the hardest high school called "gymnasium," which incorporates all fields of study.
Transferring to an American high school was a difficult transition for Grabovac, but he worked with Bosnian tutors and took culture classes to become accustomed to living in a foreign country. He became fluent in English and was able to enroll in regular classes after only one semester working with ESL instructors.
Although there were a number of American things that seemed foreign to Grabovac, he held tightly to one familiar thing: volleyball.
The first time he played was in a physical education class in seventh grade. The sport really got his attention at the Atlanta Olympic games in 1996 when Yugoslavia won the bronze medal.
"That's when I signed up and really took it seriously," he said.
There are no high school teams in Bosnia; rather, all play is considered professional. There's an "A" team, a junior team and a youth team. Grabovac played on both the junior and youth teams before moving to America.
He continued playing after coming to the United States. There was no men's volleyball team at his high school, but he played on club teams to continue improving his skills.
Grabovac was recruited by Stanford University, University of the Pacific, and University of Southern California, but he found his home at Ball State.
"I chose BSU because I loved the coaches and I loved the guys on the team, and I though it would be a great fit for me," he said.
Joel Walton, the head coach of the men's volleyball team, has been proud to coach Grabovac.
"He's a very intelligent young man who works very hard at his studies," Walton said. "He has always been someone who has been a self-motivated student. He's played a major role in our team as a starting middle attacker for the past three years
"He's (Zoran) worked at volleyball camps since he's been on the team, and he's well-liked by all of the kids who participate."
Grabovac misses some things about Europe, but especially the discipline people had when playing sports. Athletes take things so seriously there, he said.
It's more than just the European sports, though. Grabovac misses his family back in Serbia, and he also misses the food. Things like homemade cheeses and elaborate breakfast meals were some of his favorites. He misses the culture too.
"I miss the way the society was shaped," he said. "The pace of life is much slower. People relax more and spend more time with families, and people are not as concerned with money. They're very family-oriented."
Grabovac plans to go to Europe after he graduates to play volleyball for a few years before pursuing a career in business. He is currently working toward his MBA and works as a graduate assistant in the economics department.
"Zoran is the best graduate assistant I have ever had in 26 years at BSU," Professor Cecil Bohanon said. "He has my trust, confidence and support."
Walton agrees, citing Grabovac's dedication.
"I think Zoran is going to be very successful in life because of his commitment to doing things at a high quality level," he said. "His business degree combined with his knowledge of different languages has prepared him for success."
AMERICAN OATH
On Jan. 27, 2006, Grabovac became an official American citizen. Prior to taking an oath, Grabovac had to take a test that showed he knew about American government and symbols.
"Basically there's 100 questions: who is considered the father of the United States, how many stripes on the flag, how many stars, how many senators in the government, stuff like that," he said. "But you are only asked 10 questions chosen randomly from those 100."
The test administrator read a sentence for Grabovac to write and printed out a sentence for him to read. He passed the test, and was sent notification about his court date. He sat in the courtroom in alphabetical order with his parents and about 80 other people also seeking citizenship. The administrator read the oath to them and then they repeated, "I will," Grabovac said.
"It feels wonderful to be a citizen not just of the U.S., but any country that gives all its citizens equal opportunity to succeed," he said.
Taking the oath was more than becoming an American citizen for Grabovac.
"It was a day of memory of all happy and tough times my parents and I went through to arrive at that point," he said. "It was an exclamation point on everything we endeavored, an end of one story and a beginning to brand new one."
MARGINALIA
"In America, racial discrimination is based on skin color, whereas over there, all the people fighting were the same color," Grabovac said. "Racial tension was just based on where you're from, your religion or who your parents are."
Slobodan Milosevich came into power after the death of Yugoslavian ruler Josip Broz Tito's death. Milosevich strongly favored Serbian nationalism, and participated in war crimes against innocent people, for which he was later jailed.
Under Milosevich, communism thrived while Croatia and Slovenia supported democratization.
In 1991, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia. Racial fighting broke out between Croats, Muslims and Serbs. The war, which began in 1992, was in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but it involved Serbians, Croatians and Muslims because all three groups lived there and wanted a piece of the land.
"There was no reason to fight over Serbia and Croatia because there were clear boundaries," Grabovac said. "But in Bosnia, there were no boundaries, so everyone was fighting for the land."
Ethnic cleansing became common, especially in areas that were predominately Muslim. Serbians killed Bosnian Muslims or other non-Serbs living in areas that were under Serbian control. But Serbians weren't the only ones doing the killing; the violence spread throughout Yugoslavia.
A peace agreement to end the Bosnian War was signed in 1995 by leaders of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
