Men’s Volleyball Welcomes Largest International Class 

With two new international players joining the men’s volleyball team, the amount of international players has tripled, now a total of three. 

Among the newest international recruits are first-year middle blocker Oskar Berg Mikkelsen from Denmark and third-year outside hitter Aleksander Sosa from Serbia, who transferred from Quincy University. Third-year outside hitter Daniel Fabikovic, from the Czech Republic, has been a part of the team his entire collegiate career. 

Next year, the team will double its international class with the addition of three new players to their roster. Among the three include Luka Lojic, an opposite hitter from Montenegro, outside hitter Nicola Konstantinov from Bulgaria and setter Thomas Vesty from New Zealand. 

Fabikovic said he’s played volleyball all his life, and he wanted to find a way to combine volleyball and getting a degree instead of going straight into professional play — where he’d be required to focus only on volleyball and not an education.

Like Fabikovic, Mikkelsen also noted the importance of gaining an education in his decision to attend Loyola. Ever since starting volleyball, Mikkelsen said he’s wanted to go professional, however, he knew he’d need to secure a degree before doing so. 

The need for a degree comes from the unsupportive salary playing professionally in Europe brings. Being educated in the United States holds a lot of weight in Europe and will be useful to have when finding work post graduation, Fabikovic said. 

Sosa got his start in volleyball from his uncles, Vladimir and Nikola Grbic, who won gold for the Yugoslavia national team in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Sosa said volleyball became a way for him to change his entire perspective and break away from his shy personality. Sosa’s choice to come to the United States gave him a new challenge of balancing studying, working and volleyball. 

At Loyola, Fabikovic is studying sports management, Mikkelsen is studying finance and Sosa studies business management. 

With traveling away from home, the three international student-athletes have faced many challenges adjusting to life in the States. The language barrier at the beginning is always a challenge and getting used to all the slang used in the volleyball space, Fabikovic said. 

Fabikovic added the biggest challenge was leaving his family behind in the Czech Republic and not seeing them for long periods of time. Sosa agreed with Fabikovic’s sentiment and shared his own experience of homesickness. 

Since arriving at Loyola, Sosa said he has yet to return home to Serbia, and his family hasn’t been able to visit him either in the three years he’s been in the United States. He also confessed he had a tough time his first year at Quincy University making sure he didn’t fall back into his shy self again. 

Sosa noted he had to become less selfish while supporting the whole team, whether he was playing or not.

“I had to change my entire mindset over not thinking just about myself, but with every other person,” Sosa said. “I need to give a lot of energy to other people and whoever is playing on the court, because if you’re not supporting them, you’re not supporting yourself.” 

To help adjust to speaking English, Sosa said he used social media, movies and games to teach himself and better adjust to how Americans speak. 

Since joining the team was Mikkelsen’s first time in the United States, he said the culture change was a transition he also had to get used to. 

“Back in Denmark, people kind of are closed in, not really that outgoing,” Mikkelsen said. “And over here it’s always, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ so that was a big change for me.” 

Through their shared challenges and adjustments to life in the States, Fabikovic, Sosa and Mikkelsen have been able to relate to and connect with one another since the arrival of Sosa and Mikkelsen this season. 

The similar languages of the players have allowed them to communicate and share jokes with one another during practices, Sosa said. Fabikovic added the shared culture of being European and similar challenges have helped bring them together. 

“Just being from Europe, we’ve been through the same things,” Fabikovic said. “So it connects us automatically.” 

Their European culture, including possessing a completely dead honest nature, is something they share and can connect to most, according to Sosa and Fabikovic. 

With Fabikovic as the only international athlete on the team for the past three years, he was eager to gain more foreign-born athletes like himself. 

Fabikovic said he was in Davis’s office many times last year pleading and joking with him to add more international players. 

“Last year, I was in [Davis’s] office so many times just like, ‘Let’s get more internationals,’” Fabikovic said. “I’m getting lonely here.”  

After watching an interview where Fabikovic was asked about getting more international players on the team, Sosa, upon his arrival to Loyola, told Fabikovic, “You asked and you received.” 

Being the only European on the team wasn’t the only part of his case Fabikovic presented to the coaches to add more to the team. According to Fabikovic, European volleyball players bring a different style of play than those in the United States. 

Unlike volleyball players from the States who may have played several sports in high school, Fabikovic, Mikkelsen and Sosa only played volleyball, gaining them an advantage over other players. With this devotion to only one sport, these players come in with more experience and more games played than many other players.

Sosa said the American volleyball system is more advanced, yet the European system is slower paced and more physical. 

All three players said their teammates helped create a strong support system at Loyola to help settle into their new environments quickly.

Fabikovic said his roommate since freshman year, redshirt second-year Gavin O’Brien, helped a lot. O’Brien and his family are used to helping others, especially internationals, and did the same for Fabikovic by helping him get included in the culture and the support around Loyola. 

The previous coaching staff’s experience overseas also helped in Fabikovic’s transition to a new country and college, he said. 

Mikkelsen was at a slight disadvantage compared to the other international players. Due to some visa troubles, he didn’t arrive on campus and join the team until two weeks into the school year. However, Mikkelsen noted the team has since been great and grew tight really fast. 

“The guys have been incredibly good at showing me around,” Mikkelsen said. “Showing how things are done, inviting me out for stuff and keeping me occupied.” 

Sosa, who previously played at Quincy, noted the difference in team culture between the two schools. 

“For Loyola, they already accepted me for who I was and embraced me to change into a more positive, optimistic type of guy,” Sosa said. 

Sosa expressed how his teammates have been nice to be around both on and off the court. He added the coaches embraced him to change for the better as well. Fabikovic added team culture is very welcoming and being together is their main motto.

Although thousands of miles away from home, each player has found some sense of the word here in Chicago and at Loyola. 

Sosa has found a Serbian cafe close to where he lives, called Cafe Beograd, that he frequently visits for their Serbian food with Loyola men’s soccer player, third-year forward Petar Janjic who is also Serbian.  

Additionally, with Chicago having a high population of Serbians, Sosa has found many people who he can communicate with in his native language. 

Mikkelsen said he’s decorated his dorm room in similar fashion to the one he had back in Denmark, including the same posters. He also added the team culture here at Loyola was something similar to the one he had back home . 

For Fabikovic, the visits from his family to watch him play has been a slice of home. He also added his girlfriend has become a second home here at Loyola for him. Fabikovic also displays a flag with signatures and messages from family and friends from back home as a reminder. 

The three have also been reigned into American traditions and culture. Fourth-year outside hitter Cooper Evans invited Sosa to his family’s Thanksgiving celebration in Glenview. Mikkelsen embraced the holiday of Thanksgiving with graduate outside hitter Josh Schellinger and his family. 

Knowing the big changes they will have faced and will face, the three current international players offered some advice: ask for help, say yes to everything, especially when asked by your teammates, keep an open mind and don’t be stupid with your classes.