Imagine living in a country fraught with war and tensions among people because of their different ethnicities.
Imagine your family getting menacing phone calls and getting beaten up at school just because of your background.
Redshirt senior Krsto Sbutega does not have to imagine. For the first six years of his life, this situation was his harsh reality while he was living in Montenegro.
“Our family was targeted most because my uncle was a pretty influential Catholic priest and all the Serbians were Orthodox,” Sbutega said. “It was an overall feeling toward all Croatians in Serbia and Montenegro, but toward our family more.”
Sbutega said that after he was beaten up at school, his mother decided it was time to leave.
In his blood
Sbutega said he began playing water polo when he was only 6 years old.
“My dad thought it was a good idea for me to start playing a sport,” Sbutega said. “I had no idea what to do, and he kind of advised me with water polo.”
In Montenegro, water polo is a much more popular, mainstream sport than it is in the United States. Lots of children begin playing when they are very young. There are even professional water polo teams scattered throughout Europe.
Even when Sbutega lived in Italy, after moving from Montenegro, his dad’s influence guided him toward water polo in their new home. He said his dad played on local teams in both Montenegro and Italy.
“He was not that great; he just really had a passion for it more than anything,” Sbutega said.
Sbutega’s father passed his love of the game onto his son, and with his father’s help, Sbutega continued to excel.
Sbutega’s time playing in Italy culminated in 2000 when his team won the Italian Junior National Championship, a feat he lists as one of his most memorable water polo moments.
“There was this group of guys that grew up together,” Sbutega said. “Pretty much since I was like 10 through 16 or 17, we played together. Our last year before we broke up, we won a national championship. It was a great experience.”
Coming to America
For Sbutega, a chance meeting set his future into motion. Blake Wellen was a former Bruin who had graduated in 2000 and was playing professional water polo in Rome. He met and got to know Sbutega and encouraged him to consider going to a college in the United States, namely his alma mater.
“Blake was adamant about us trying to help Krsto get into UCLA,” coach Adam Krikorian said. “He got to know him, and he got to like him as a water polo player and as a person. He thought he was a great kid and a smart kid.”
With Wellen pushing for Sbutega to come to UCLA, he seriously began to consider his options. Sbutega wanted to continue playing water polo but did not want to take the step to a professional team.
With aspirations to go to graduate school and become a ship-building engineer, it was very important for him that he went to college. If he went into professional water polo, he didn’t see his career goal as a possibility.
“It’s really hard to finish school, especially engineering, when playing water polo,” Sbutega said. “They require your full attention and there isn’t time for school, so this is the only way I saw to keep playing water polo at a pretty good level and get a good education.”
With the encouragement of his parents and sisters, he made the decision to come to the United States for school. His decision started the process that every college student goes through: deciding what school to attend. However, this process was unique for Sbutega and involved a great deal of effort.
“I sent e-mails to a lot of coaches and stuff, but probably because of Blake it was mostly UCLA,” Sbutega said. “I talked to Cal for a little bit at one point, but pretty quickly UCLA was my main choice. Maybe because he amped it up so much.”
Sbutega made the decision to become a Bruin without ever having visited the school or even the country.
Adjusting and acclimating
For the second time in his life, Sbutega made a drastic move, but this time he made it himself, knowing he would only have two chances a year to see his family.
Although many people might be worried about coming to a new country alone and having to transition to so many new things, Sbutega said he handled it all very well.
“The process to get here was so long and kind of a lot of work with all the papers,” Sbutega said. “So when I came here, I didn’t even have time to worry about how it was going to be. I just jumped right into it and it was easy.”
For Sbutega, who already spoke English upon arriving in the U.S., one of the greatest areas of concern was the food. He said that all he had heard about was the stereotypical American items like hot dogs and hamburgers, but the dorms easily cured this apprehension.
With these potential problems out of the way, the only thing left was settling in with the water polo team and the American style.
“He was out of shape,” Krikorian said. “That’s one thing I remember. He was kind of blown away by the work and what we did here. It really wasn’t too different from any normal freshman that comes in at 17 or 18 years old and you’re at a new place. There’s just a lot going on.”
Falling into his new routine included redshirting his freshman year as many athletes do in the water polo program. During this first year he witnessed the team win a national championship.
“The thing I thought about a lot of times is that you come here your first year and you win right away and you think it’s easy,” Sbutega said. “By now I actually realize how hard it is, which makes me think about how much better it was that first year that it was won.”
A standout
In his time at UCLA, Sbutega has become a pivotal part of the team and distinguished himself as a leader.
“His knowledge of the game is way higher than anyone else on the team,” redshirt senior Russell Simpkins said. “He just brings a sense of maturity in his game and the knowledge he has that elevated the rest of us.”
Sbutega is currently leading the team in goals with 25. He has already had four games this season in which he scored four or more times, and he was named the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation co-player of the week earlier in the year.
His improvement and success was not possible without a great deal of effort.
“One of the greatest things about Krsto is that he practices with such intensity that I’ve never seen before,” Krikorian said. “In everything we do, he’s going for it and laying it on the line, going 100 percent all the time in every little thing we do. For that, it’s been absolutely a dream to coach someone like that, and he’s been a great role model for everyone that has been associated with this program during his time.”
Sbutega is not stopping though, as he has his eyes set on a much higher prize.
“I feel like there’s a UCLA tradition where we have won a lot of national championships, and not winning one in four years would feel like a failure for me,” Sbutega said.
He says that UCLA, along with the top three or four other teams, always has the talent to win, but it’s a matter of making sure all the other elements fall into place.
“We’ve never lacked talent in the past three years. It’s just all the other things that have to be right: the team, how you play in tough moments, how the team bonded, how well the team is playing together, the coaching. Everything has to fit. It’s like a puzzle,” Sbutega said. “When everything fits, you can win a national championship.”
For Sbutega, his goal is set. He has traveled around the world, lived away from his family and worked for four years to make it happen. He is hoping that this year will be the year that the pieces fall together and UCLA walks away with a national title. With him in the pool, the Bruins stand a chance of making it happen.
“He’s playing with a tremendous amount of composure and almost a sense of calm he hasn’t really had before,” Krikorian said. “There are many roles Krsto fills, and he’s done a great job up to this point.
“He is, in a lot of ways, the glue that keeps things together.”