Post by roofed! on Oct 14, 2004 10:14:40 GMT -5
[ftp]http://www.dailytrojan.com/news/2004/10/14/Sports/Her-Family.Matters-752970.shtml?page=1[/ftp]
They don't call it Parents Weekend for nothing.
They'll do this weekend to the USC campus what they do every year: completely take over the place. Moms will be moms, asking every question known to man and critiquing every subsequent answer. Dads will be dads, indulging all they can in a lifestyle filled with frat parties and football games.
All the while, students just grin and bear it. Hey, parents will be parents.
-
"Gordon's not here right now, may I take down a message?" Danka Siljegovic says politely over the phone on a weeknight, explaining her husband is at their 14-year old daughter Una's junior varsity volleyball match.
What about tomorrow, say, sometime around his lunch break at work?
"Actually, tomorrow night would be best," Danka responds. "We work 13 miles from our home, and we get off at 5:30. Can I have him call you when we get back?"
All you want is 10 minutes to talk with Gordan Siljegovic about his daughter Nevana, a junior setter on the USC women's volleyball team.
Danka assures you he could go on about his oldest daughter for hours.
And this comes right after a monologue from Danka about how amazing it has been to see how much Nevana has accomplished over the past few years.
Yes, the Siljegovic's offer just another example of parents who are overwhelmingly proud of their child. Which, of course, can only mean one thing: they are just another example of parents who aren't proud enough of themselves.
-
Nevana (she prefers to go by her nickname "Nena") fidgets when she talks about the afternoon of March 19, 1999. It was four days after her 16th birthday and she was sitting in a classroom at her high school in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, a republic of what had formerly been the nation of Yugoslavia.
"All of a sudden this teacher comes in and says 'grab your books and get out now,'" Nena recalled. "They said there were going to be bombings and to get home immediately."
Fortunately, home was less than 10 minutes away. She said she ran there and met up with Una, who was nine years old at the time. Nena knew what was going on. She had been watching the news and was aware that NATO planes would possibly be bombing targets throughout Yugoslavia. NATO fighters were battling Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's mounting repression of ethnic Albanians, and a breakdown of negotiations between separatists and the Serbs had only made things worse.
Still, Nena didn't expect things to go down like this. She had lived a relatively normal life during her nation's civil war early in the 1990s, when the communist system in Eastern Europe had fallen. But there sat Nena and Una in a cellar beneath the family's apartment on that March day, comforted only by a phone call from Gordan and Danka that they would also be home soon, as fast as the public transportation system - paralyzed that day - could get them there.
-
When Nena was born in 1983, Gordan was working for a large export and import company. On the side, he coached a professional men's volleyball team. He himself had a successful playing career on the professional level in Yugoslavia and it was only a matter of time before Nena picked up the sport.
Still, Nena said she never felt pressure to live up to all her father had accomplished.
"We were always laughing, always joking around," Nena said. "That's just the way my parents were. We were best friends, there were never any secrets. Everything was out in the open, we always shared."
-
Three months after the NATO air strikes began and forced Serbians to flee their jobs and their schools, the Siljegovic's packed up whatever belongings they had left and headed to live with family members in Austria. After that day in March, Nena and Una never returned to school, Danka and Gordan never returned to work.
They had spent most days with their apartment neighbors in that cellar of their building, which was acting as a makeshift bombshelter. Nena described it as being the size of "two dorm rooms put together" - to house 15 people. There was minimal water and hardly any light.
"All you could do is think," Nena said. "I don't know why, but those days went by so fast. You think so much and just stare at the walls. You don't think about time."
Leaving behind friends and family members in war-torn Serbia was one of the toughest things Gordan Siljegovic ever had to do, but he and Danka never regret moving the family to Austria.
"When things get so bad, when you can't go back any further, you have to move forward," Danka said. "We only had one goal at that point: to stay together and to stay alive. That was all that mattered."
-
Nena's favorite position in volleyball had always been outside hitter. After all, that's the position her father played on the Yugoslavian national team from 1973 to 1976. But when she first arrived in America and joined the volleyball team at Royal High in Simi Valley, her English was so broken that the when the coach asked her what positions she knew how to play, he could only understand her when she said "setter." She went on to become the league's most valuable player as a setter that season, and has played the position ever since.
-
For the Siljegovics, the two years they spent in Austria were like living purgatory. It was there Gordan and Danka realized they wanted to move the family to America, and so most of their time was spent applying for different refugee programs that could get them overseas.
For Nena and Una, living in Austria presented different challenges. They went to a school where they understood little of what the teacher was saying and didn't have many friends to hang out with in their free time.
"It was horrible," Nena said. "(Austria) is this beautiful country, but it's sad, because the people there were extremely cold toward me because I was so different. I should look back at my time there and be happy I spent it in such a nice place. But I don't ... it was one of the worst periods in my life."
Gordan and Danka would take the girls on trips every weekend, telling them every time they would try their best to get them to America. Nena called those weekends an "escape" she looked forward to every week while feeling like an alien from a different planet at school.
But she found out she would make the ultimate escape in the summer of 2000, when her parents finally were accepted by a refugee program that would land them in Southern California in less than a few months
Nena led Moorpark Community College to a 17-4 overall record in 2003. The Raiders were ranked sixth nationally and won the Western State North Division title. She was named the American Volleyball Coaches Association junior college National Player of the Year Award, as well as the Ventura County Star College Athlete of the Year.
-
When the Siljegovic's arrived in America three years ago, they stepped off the plane with a few bags of luggage and not much else. Gordan had to reassure a worried Danka that they had done the right thing by coming so far with so little stability.
"We're going to be OK ... this is the land of opportunity," he told her.
The family stayed in a home with Glen and Trisha Osaki, a couple who had been living in Simi Valley for years. Glen Osaki was a USC graduate, and one of the first things he did was take Nena to a USC women's volleyball match when he found out she liked the sport.
"I was blown away by the experience," she said. "It was kind of like pro volleyball in Yugoslavia."
Meanwhile, Gordan and Danka struggled to find work. They were denied by several places that told them they didn't speak enough English to be qualified. Among other places they began applying to in dire circumstances were Carls Jr. and Hometown Buffet.
"It was scary," Danka said. "We were willing to do whatever, we would work whenever ... we would work 24 hours if we had to, we were so thankful to be in a place like America. We didn't want to leave."
They were finally hired by Countrywide Insurance as office assistants at the company's local building. The two have since been promoted several times, and over the years have sent money they earned to family members still struggling financially in Serbia.
They said their biggest thrill, however, came last year when USC women's volleyball coach Mick Haley invited the family to watch the Women of Troy practice. Two years earlier, Nena couldn't accept scholarship offers from other Pac-10 schools because she did so poorly on the English section of her SATs.
On that day, Haley offered her a full-ride scholarship. Seconds later, Danka broke down and cried.
"I almost felt some tears myself," Haley said. "But (the scholarship) had nothing to do with what she had come from. We wanted her because she had the skills to help us."
Now a full-time student who will graduate with an international relations degree in 2006, Nena didn't hesitate recently to use one of her best skills as a setter: giving the assist.
"My parents are the reason I'm here," she said. "This is for them. I wouldn't have been able to get through everything, emotionally or spiritually, if they hadn't been with me through this whole thing every step of the way."
Danka and Gordan both deflect that credit, insisting Nena's self-discipline can get her through anything else she encounters without them.
Hey, guess parents will always be parents.
They don't call it Parents Weekend for nothing.
They'll do this weekend to the USC campus what they do every year: completely take over the place. Moms will be moms, asking every question known to man and critiquing every subsequent answer. Dads will be dads, indulging all they can in a lifestyle filled with frat parties and football games.
All the while, students just grin and bear it. Hey, parents will be parents.
-
"Gordon's not here right now, may I take down a message?" Danka Siljegovic says politely over the phone on a weeknight, explaining her husband is at their 14-year old daughter Una's junior varsity volleyball match.
What about tomorrow, say, sometime around his lunch break at work?
"Actually, tomorrow night would be best," Danka responds. "We work 13 miles from our home, and we get off at 5:30. Can I have him call you when we get back?"
All you want is 10 minutes to talk with Gordan Siljegovic about his daughter Nevana, a junior setter on the USC women's volleyball team.
Danka assures you he could go on about his oldest daughter for hours.
And this comes right after a monologue from Danka about how amazing it has been to see how much Nevana has accomplished over the past few years.
Yes, the Siljegovic's offer just another example of parents who are overwhelmingly proud of their child. Which, of course, can only mean one thing: they are just another example of parents who aren't proud enough of themselves.
-
Nevana (she prefers to go by her nickname "Nena") fidgets when she talks about the afternoon of March 19, 1999. It was four days after her 16th birthday and she was sitting in a classroom at her high school in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, a republic of what had formerly been the nation of Yugoslavia.
"All of a sudden this teacher comes in and says 'grab your books and get out now,'" Nena recalled. "They said there were going to be bombings and to get home immediately."
Fortunately, home was less than 10 minutes away. She said she ran there and met up with Una, who was nine years old at the time. Nena knew what was going on. She had been watching the news and was aware that NATO planes would possibly be bombing targets throughout Yugoslavia. NATO fighters were battling Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's mounting repression of ethnic Albanians, and a breakdown of negotiations between separatists and the Serbs had only made things worse.
Still, Nena didn't expect things to go down like this. She had lived a relatively normal life during her nation's civil war early in the 1990s, when the communist system in Eastern Europe had fallen. But there sat Nena and Una in a cellar beneath the family's apartment on that March day, comforted only by a phone call from Gordan and Danka that they would also be home soon, as fast as the public transportation system - paralyzed that day - could get them there.
-
When Nena was born in 1983, Gordan was working for a large export and import company. On the side, he coached a professional men's volleyball team. He himself had a successful playing career on the professional level in Yugoslavia and it was only a matter of time before Nena picked up the sport.
Still, Nena said she never felt pressure to live up to all her father had accomplished.
"We were always laughing, always joking around," Nena said. "That's just the way my parents were. We were best friends, there were never any secrets. Everything was out in the open, we always shared."
-
Three months after the NATO air strikes began and forced Serbians to flee their jobs and their schools, the Siljegovic's packed up whatever belongings they had left and headed to live with family members in Austria. After that day in March, Nena and Una never returned to school, Danka and Gordan never returned to work.
They had spent most days with their apartment neighbors in that cellar of their building, which was acting as a makeshift bombshelter. Nena described it as being the size of "two dorm rooms put together" - to house 15 people. There was minimal water and hardly any light.
"All you could do is think," Nena said. "I don't know why, but those days went by so fast. You think so much and just stare at the walls. You don't think about time."
Leaving behind friends and family members in war-torn Serbia was one of the toughest things Gordan Siljegovic ever had to do, but he and Danka never regret moving the family to Austria.
"When things get so bad, when you can't go back any further, you have to move forward," Danka said. "We only had one goal at that point: to stay together and to stay alive. That was all that mattered."
-
Nena's favorite position in volleyball had always been outside hitter. After all, that's the position her father played on the Yugoslavian national team from 1973 to 1976. But when she first arrived in America and joined the volleyball team at Royal High in Simi Valley, her English was so broken that the when the coach asked her what positions she knew how to play, he could only understand her when she said "setter." She went on to become the league's most valuable player as a setter that season, and has played the position ever since.
-
For the Siljegovics, the two years they spent in Austria were like living purgatory. It was there Gordan and Danka realized they wanted to move the family to America, and so most of their time was spent applying for different refugee programs that could get them overseas.
For Nena and Una, living in Austria presented different challenges. They went to a school where they understood little of what the teacher was saying and didn't have many friends to hang out with in their free time.
"It was horrible," Nena said. "(Austria) is this beautiful country, but it's sad, because the people there were extremely cold toward me because I was so different. I should look back at my time there and be happy I spent it in such a nice place. But I don't ... it was one of the worst periods in my life."
Gordan and Danka would take the girls on trips every weekend, telling them every time they would try their best to get them to America. Nena called those weekends an "escape" she looked forward to every week while feeling like an alien from a different planet at school.
But she found out she would make the ultimate escape in the summer of 2000, when her parents finally were accepted by a refugee program that would land them in Southern California in less than a few months
Nena led Moorpark Community College to a 17-4 overall record in 2003. The Raiders were ranked sixth nationally and won the Western State North Division title. She was named the American Volleyball Coaches Association junior college National Player of the Year Award, as well as the Ventura County Star College Athlete of the Year.
-
When the Siljegovic's arrived in America three years ago, they stepped off the plane with a few bags of luggage and not much else. Gordan had to reassure a worried Danka that they had done the right thing by coming so far with so little stability.
"We're going to be OK ... this is the land of opportunity," he told her.
The family stayed in a home with Glen and Trisha Osaki, a couple who had been living in Simi Valley for years. Glen Osaki was a USC graduate, and one of the first things he did was take Nena to a USC women's volleyball match when he found out she liked the sport.
"I was blown away by the experience," she said. "It was kind of like pro volleyball in Yugoslavia."
Meanwhile, Gordan and Danka struggled to find work. They were denied by several places that told them they didn't speak enough English to be qualified. Among other places they began applying to in dire circumstances were Carls Jr. and Hometown Buffet.
"It was scary," Danka said. "We were willing to do whatever, we would work whenever ... we would work 24 hours if we had to, we were so thankful to be in a place like America. We didn't want to leave."
They were finally hired by Countrywide Insurance as office assistants at the company's local building. The two have since been promoted several times, and over the years have sent money they earned to family members still struggling financially in Serbia.
They said their biggest thrill, however, came last year when USC women's volleyball coach Mick Haley invited the family to watch the Women of Troy practice. Two years earlier, Nena couldn't accept scholarship offers from other Pac-10 schools because she did so poorly on the English section of her SATs.
On that day, Haley offered her a full-ride scholarship. Seconds later, Danka broke down and cried.
"I almost felt some tears myself," Haley said. "But (the scholarship) had nothing to do with what she had come from. We wanted her because she had the skills to help us."
Now a full-time student who will graduate with an international relations degree in 2006, Nena didn't hesitate recently to use one of her best skills as a setter: giving the assist.
"My parents are the reason I'm here," she said. "This is for them. I wouldn't have been able to get through everything, emotionally or spiritually, if they hadn't been with me through this whole thing every step of the way."
Danka and Gordan both deflect that credit, insisting Nena's self-discipline can get her through anything else she encounters without them.
Hey, guess parents will always be parents.
