Former Everett basketball star knows real meaning of adversity

Adversity: In athletics, it's an overused word meant to encompass all things difficult.

Had a hangnail? You've worked through it. Scratched your arm and returned to flourish? You've battled back from it. Lost two games and won the next? You survived it.

It's too bad the term is used too often to carry any useful meaning.

Just ask Zlatko Savovic. He lived it.

"Zo has been through more adversity through his first 20 years than most people go through in a lifetime," said Billy Taylor, Savovic's basketball coach at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. "It's made him a very strong-minded, tough person. He's got a fighter's mentality. And it's very evident in everything he does."

Nine years ago, Savovic moved from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Everett, where he was a star for four seasons on the Seagulls' basketball team. He earned a scholarship to Lehigh, where he's a senior starting guard for the 5-3 Mountain Hawks.

So let's run through the adversity checklist.

In his native Bosnia, where Croatians, Bosnians and Muslims battled in a brutal ethnic war, Savovic was skateboarding one day when a soldier opened fire. His best friend, Amir Mesinovic, tackled him, pushing him away from a stream of bullets.

In his first three years at Lehigh, Savovic struggled through losing seasons on a team racked with infighting and a coach he still isn't particularly fond of. That coach was replaced by Taylor.

But that was nothing compared with the conflict discussed at his own dinner table, where his mother, Behrija, a Muslim, and father, Bozidar, a Serb, maintained family unity despite conflicting religious beliefs.

"It was a war, basically," Savovic said last week. "You would see soldiers on the street with guns. You would hear gunshots. There were a few close calls, but we just wanted to get out. We wanted a better opportunity."

They found it in Snohomish County after sending dozens of applications to embassies in the United States and Canada.

They've worked through adversity. Bozidar has a job as a mechanical engineer at Boeing. Behrija is an electrical engineer.

And Zlatko Savovic is studying in his father's footsteps — for free — at one of the best engineering schools in the country.

He's come through adversity on the court as well. As a college junior, Savovic averaged 3.4 points and played 15 minutes a game. This season he's averaging 14 points and playing more than 30 minutes.

And he's started every game for a Mountain Hawks team that is off to its

best start in a decade.

The past three seasons, Savovic said, he'd play for much of one game, make a mistake and not play for three games. So he adapted again and was careful not to make mistakes so he would stay in.

Under Taylor, everything has improved. Lehigh is winning more often. And, more importantly, players such as Savovic are playing to win because they're not scared they'll be yanked for a mistake.

Savovic is joined by three other local players — senior Matt Logie and freshmen Kevin Tempest from Mercer Island and Dayne Mickelson from Woodinville — on the Lehigh roster, a pipeline that started before Taylor and continues. Taylor said he's been in the Seattle area recently recruiting.

Savovic returned to Bosnia last summer and noticed the nine-year change in his personality. It took him a week to learn the language again and stop making up words that didn't exist. His old friends teased him about how Americanized he'd become.

"Only my first three years of college would I want to change anything in my life," Savovic said. "But man, I'm in a good situation now. This year, I wouldn't change anything. This year, I would keep."

Everett gym getting new name

On Saturday, the Everett High School gym will get a new name: the Norm Lowery Gymnasium. That day, Everett and Marysville-Pilchuck play on the Joe Richer Court at the gym.

Norm Lowery coached at Everett for 18 seasons. His teams won nine league championships and seven district titles and played in eight state tournaments, which was good enough to earn him induction into the Everett High School Coaches and Washington Basketball Coaches Association halls of fame.

Lowery's son, Mike Lowery, coaches at Marysville-Pilchuck. Two other sons, Norm Lowery Jr. of Lake Stevens and Tom Lowery, formerly head coach at Mariner, also have followed in the family tradition.

Lake Stevens wrestlers still winning

The streak is still intact. Barely.

The Lake Stevens wrestling team hasn't lost a dual match since falling to Lynnwood in 1993, and the Vikings have won 13 conference titles in a row. But last week, against Stanwood, Coach Brent Barnes admitted he was nervous. His team escaped with a 28-27 victory.

But after losing eight seniors to graduation, the young Vikings — with only four returning varsity wrestlers — look vulnerable.

No matter, Barnes said. The streak isn't something they're focusing on anyway.

"One thing is we don't talk about it," he said. "We don't dwell on it. We focus on getting better every day. We'll let those other things take care of themselves."

It's Thompson's time in Monroe

When Kirstin Thompson's father moved his business to Monroe this year, his 6-foot-6 daughter came with it.

"It's kind of our missing spot," Monroe Coach Alan Dickson said of the position Thompson fills. "We now have a complete offense."

Thompson is believed to be the tallest girls-basketball player in the state and joins a team with several good guards that is off to a 3-1 start this season. Dickson said Thompson is one of his team's hardest workers and was a needed addition to an eight-person rotation that includes four sophomores.

Around the county

• Washington Huskies starting forward and former Meadowdale standout Kellie (O'Neill) Dalan suffered a stress fracture and will be out of the lineup for six weeks.

• The No. 4 Archbishop Murphy girls basketball team won the Can Am Santa Slam Tournament last weekend in British Columbia. Lauren and Lisa Coate combined for 14 points and 20 rebounds in the championship. Lauren Coate scored 30 points in a semifinal victory.

• Snohomish finished second in the Graham Morin Invite wrestling tournament last weekend. Bryan Hise (112 pounds) and Jordan Gere (145) won their weight classes.

• Monroe forward Josh Waite scored 35 points in a loss to Marysville-Pilchuck last week.

Greg Bishop: 206-464-3191 or gbishop@seattletimes.com.