AIA Basketball Team Moved by Visit to Auschwitz

An already rigorous trip took some unexpected and emotional turns as the AIA men’s basketball team, touring through Poland, visited the Auschwitz concentration camp.

“I bring the players to Auschwitz so they can understand a little bit of the history and the suffering of the people. Often times it expands their world,” says team director Mike* who has organized this tour for the last three years.

The visit was overwhelming for many of the players, as most of them have never had such an opportunity while some had never even heard of Auschwitz. The Auschwitz concentration camp is the largest of Nazi Germany’s concentration and extermination camps where about 1.5 million innocent lives were lost according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“Some of the players were shocked and couldn’t even go inside some of the buildings because it was too powerful to see,” Mike says.

The camp, now having a museum feel to it with videos and photographs, has a series of block buildings that housed the prisoners. Inside each building are rooms with various themes showing the horror that took place there including items of torture, medical experiments, human hair, glasses, cookware and baby shoes.

“Walking along the roads and standing in the block houses is something I will never forget,” says player Abe Lodwick of Washington State University.

Another player, Dwight Thorne of the University of Colorado at Boulder, was asked by his coach before the tour to find information on his father-in-law who had been a prisoner of war at Auschwitz. As a result, the coach’s 83-year-old father-in-law has begun to share his experiences as a Holocaust survivor with his family for the very first time, Mike says.

The combination of the poignant visit to Auschwitz and an arduous schedule did not hinder the team as they finished with a record of 4-1.

“Competition was against professional club teams so there were players in their twenties and early thirties,” Mike says. “These games were real challenging because there were some pretty decent teams and good shooters. I had to remind the players who our [most important] audience was, and that the score really didn’t matter with God as our audience.”

Led by Coach Kevin McKenna of Indiana State University (ISU), the Division I players came from Washington State University, Valparaiso University, ISU, Baylor University, the University of Colorado, Mercer University and Poland. The team was an unusual mix with three pairs of teammates from the same universities, and a Polish professional player who joined the team for the second year.

“God built a strong cohesiveness throughout our group. It’s hard to bring ten guys and a coach together and have things go smoothly,” Ernest Kusnyer of Mercer University says. “I think this is a testament to God's strength and power. He opened all of our hearts and minds on this trip and because of that I believe it made us a better team.”

In addition to competition, the team conducted the fifth annual national coaching clinic and a children’s basketball camp in Katowice.

“I really enjoyed when the team helped coach the grammar school basketball camp. The kids were so genuine in their excitement to play,” Lodwick says. “It made all of us feel good to sign  autographs but it made us feel even better to be able to help make the kids so happy and share that experience.”

As the team learned to adjust to the various physical, cultural and emotional challenges throughout the tour, some players had spiritual breakthroughs.

“We had a couple of players on the team that came on the tour and had questions about their faith and were not sure what it really meant to be a Christian,” Mike says.

Throughout the course of the ten-day tour, one player received Christ into his life, another renewed his relationship with God and one more found clarity in determining God’s will for his life. The AIA Polish team member, Hubert Radke, shared his faith and life story for the first time in his home country with an opposing team.

“I saw God do amazing things for me and others on this tour,” Kusnyer says. “It was so uplifting to see how God was working within each of them.”

For more information on the AIA Poland basketball tour, please visit http://www.athletesinaction.org/TeamBlogs/author/Basketball-Poland.aspx.

By Elaine Piniat, AIA summer intern in the communications department.

Elaine.piniat@athletesinaction.org

* Athletes in Action’s policy is to use only first names of AIA staff members in online stories.

News | Sports Teams