Feb. 20, 2001

By Peter Stuhldreher

It’s an age-old story.

Boy grows up playing basketball dreaming of one day putting on the jersey for his favorite college team. His biggest worry is how to improve his game and hope that someone notices.

That is the typical story of a player’s journey to college basketball. However, nothing is typical about the journey of Irish sophomore small forward Jere Macura.

The six foot, nine inch Macura grew up in a time of unrest in his hometown of Split, Croatia, where he struggled staying out of the fighting as much as possible. He remembers being forced into bomb shelters and having to grow up in a country at war.

“I was 10 or 11 and there were problems with Serbia,” recalled Macura.

“Now and then I had to go to shelters because there were bombings and shootings every day.”

Macura hesitates to call Croatia a war-torn country. He did not experience much of the war, which began in 1991, first hand. His town did not see much fighting or bombing, although the threat of war was very real.

“It was scary, those couple of years from 1991 to 1994.”

During that time, Macura was not able to play basketball at all. He remembers going to bomb shelters, not being able to go outside during the day, living with no television or electricity and living in the dark after six o’clock at night.

Through it all, he still found a way to be positive and even comical about his experience.

“I didn’t have to go to school for a year, so that was a good thing. Otherwise it was hard,” Macura jokes.

One night in particular stands out in Macura’s mind from those years of war in Croatia. The family usually stayed together in one room because it was the closest room to the doors leading to the bomb shelters. Macura remembers being awakened by a thundering sound. He woke up his father telling him there was shooting outside. His father replied it had to be thunder because it was too loud to be shooting and told him to go back to sleep. Two minutes later an alarm was sounding and Macura and his family had to get out of bed and make their way to a shelter.

“It was depressing,” said Macura.

“You had to jump out of bed, pick up your stuff and run downstairs at two or three in the morning. It’s not easy because there’s shooting outside. It’s not a pleasant feeling when you go outside and see holes in the buildings from machine guns. That was one time when the fighting was very close. The house next to mine got bombed. That is one thing that I can’t forget.”

The fighting in his home country did not deter Macura from finding a calling in basketball. He just found that calling a little late.

“I was playing when I was 12, but it was nothing very serious, I was just a tall guy.”

He didn’t begin to take the game seriously until 1994.

“When you’re 6-5 and 14 years old, you can’t play soccer.”

Macura picked up the game of basketball quickly as he helped the Croatian national team to win its first-ever gold medal in the European Championships in 1995. He continued his playing career with the Basketball Club of Split where he led the team in scoring and was named most valuable player in 1996 and 1997. He recalls his time with the basketball club as a great personal experience.

“It’s great when you’re playing at the club where (NBA players) Toni Kukoc, Dino Radja and all those great European players played. It’s a club with great tradition.”

It was at the Basketball Club of Split that Macura earned the recognition that landed him at Notre Dame, even though he never made a campus visit. He admits to having known very few American colleges at the time that he decided to come to Notre Dame. However, he had heard of Notre Dame on television overseas, so when fellow Croatian Ivan Kartelo asked him if he wanted to come to Notre Dame to play basketball, Macura responded “Why not?”

Former Irish head coach Matt Doherty took a chance on Macura based on watching him via film. Macura could not come to South Bend for a visit because he was serving in the Croatian army at the time and could not leave the country. He researched Notre Dame on the internet and when Doherty offered him a scholarship, he accepted.

When Macura arrived on campus last year, he had to adjust to life and basketball in America, which was easier said than done. A few of the more difficult parts of adjusting to life at Notre Dame were that his family was not with him and American food and culture is very different from Croatia.

However, Macura relied upon Kartelo as a friend with whom he could share his new experiences.

“When you have someone to talk to in Croatian and share the same problems, it’s so nice.”

In spite of any difficulties Macura had adjusting, he emerged to have a fine freshman season for the Irish. He averaged 4.6 points and 2.4 rebounds, while seeing action in all 37 games last season. He had career highs in points (13), rebounds (eight), and minutes (33) against Indiana last season and he was a key contributor off the bench during both the regular season and the National Invitation Tournament, where Notre Dame took runner-up honors to Wake Forest in 1999-2000.

One year after adjusting to a new country, a new school and a new basketball team, Macura had adapted to all of his new roles and was working hard to improve. Then he was forced to adjust yet again, this time to a new coach, Mike Brey. He met this new situation with mixed emotions as he didn’t want to see Doherty, who had done so much for him, leave, but he was excited about the prospect of playing for a great, experienced coach. Brey was also excited about the prospect of coaching a player like Macura.

“I had watched some tape of him and I knew he was an explosive offensive player – very talented with great size.”

This season, Macura has again been a strong Irish reserve at the forward position. He is averaging almost 10 minutes, 2.3 points and 1.9 rebounds per contest. Brey realizes the importance of having Macura helping this team off the bench.

“We need him to come in and give us some defensive depth and guard bigger perimeter guys, but also to hunt his shot off the bench,” said Brey.

“He’s also a great rebounder. He really helps us on the backboard too.”

With his many offensive talents, it has been difficult to identify the position on the floor for which Macura is best suited. Brey wanted him to become a better defender – which Macura has done this season. Macura says that he will play whatever position the coaches want him to, although he feels he is more of a small forward than any other position.

“If coach wants me to play power forward, I’ll play it,” said Macura.

“If coach wants me to play guard, I’ll play guard. It doesn’t matter. I feel comfortable around the basket and I feel comfortable shooting from outside,” Macura says.

Brey doesn’t want to box Macura into any one role. Instead, he wants to take full advantage of all of Macura’s abilities on the floor.

“Jere’s a good basketball player because he knows how to play and he’s very skilled,” said Brey.

“He can shoot and he can pass. He has a feel for the game.”

Since his arrival on campus last fall, Macura has been adjusting to life in America on and off the court impressing everyone along the way. Perhaps his toughest adjustment of all has not been on the basketball court, but in the classroom where he is going to school in a different language. Enrolled in the Mendoza College of Business, Macura admits having initial troubles adjusting to school in America, and joked about having to write many essays in English for his classes.

“It was hard in the beginning,” said Macura.

“I never wrote as many essays in English as I do here. It was tough, especially when you get assigned to write a 10 page paper on Plato. I feel I couldn’t write 10 pages on that in Croatian.”

But he has done well and overcome his difficulties and the people around him are taking notice. Teammate Matt Carroll is one of those people who are impressed by Macura’s success.

“He does well in school and he does well in basketball,” said Carroll.

“Just handling both of those things and having it all be in a foreign language to him is pretty impressive.”

Although it has made it necessary for him to work harder to succeed in America, Macura’s Croatian background is not a hindrance for him. Rather, it is a very moving experience in his life that motivates and drives him to make the best of the opportunities that he has been given. He talks fondly of his homeland and even talks of one day possibly returning. He remembers the times of peace in his country instead of the place of war that many people today see it as.

“I miss it because it was not always like that,” said Macura.

“(The war) was just two or three years. Everyone is asking me if there is still war, but the war finished in my country five years ago. It is fine now.”

As any of his Irish teammates will tell you, Macura is a truly nice person to be around off the court. He takes everything in stride and has a positive attitude, including being able to joke about the troubles in his life. He is a determined person, who appreciates all that he has been given and realizes how fortunate he is.

Carroll has become one of Macura’s friends around campus and describes him as a fun person.

“If you don’t know Jere, he’s quiet at first,” said Carroll.

“But once you get to know him, he opens up and he’s a real fun person to be around.”

It has been a long journey from his homeland of Croatia to Notre Dame and nothing about Macura’s story is typical. He has adapted well to all the changes in his life. However, he is still continually working to improve to become a better player. His goals for the rest of the year are simple, yet pointed.

“Hit some threes and keep winning.”

No matter what Jere Macura does in his life, he has proven that he will always keep winning.