Columbus North senior Jakub Trusina started playing basketball in the Czech Republic when he was about 8 years old, but he always wondered what it would be like playing the sport in a different country.
Trusina didn’t hesitate when he finally got the opportunity, making the move to America his freshman year after his father had accepted a job at Valeo in Seymour, and he has been a major piece to the Bull Dogs’ success the past two seasons.
With the encouragement of his mother, Trusina started his hoops career in the town of Litomerice, which is about 40 miles north of Prague. He played there until his move to Indiana.
“She wanted to stay connected to basketball, and she got it through me,” Jakub said.
It can be difficult adapting to a different country, culture and lifestyle at a young age, but Trusina was ready for the challenge. He said the first couple months were really hard being the new guy in town, but added that basketball helped him find new friends and people to hang out with.
Trusina had studied English for five years back in the Czech Republic, but even he admitted he wasn’t very fluent in the language when he arrived in the United States.
“My English was just so rusty, and it took me a while to just be comfortable with speaking English and just gain the confidence to talk to people,” Trusina said. “It was definitely a hard step to overcome, but I was fine.”
When he was younger, Trusina and his family traveled across the globe to places in Europe and Africa. He said these trips were around a couple months at a time, and that his parents helped him gain an appreciation of other cultures and meeting new people.
One person that was impressed with Trusina’s knowledge of the world was his teacher and head coach Paul Ferguson. Trusina was a student in Ferguson’s geography class the second semester of his freshman year.
“As a student, he’s very bright,” Ferguson said. “It was fun to teach him in geography class because he’s traveled extensively throughout the world and has such a great knowledge of the world and different cultures.”
When Trusina, a 6-foot-2 guard, started playing basketball for the Bull Dogs, he noticed that the style, pace of play, physicality and coaching is much different in the United States than in the Czech Republic.
“Back in Czech, it was more focused on playing one-on-one basketball. You didn’t really run many plays or just focus on the opponent very much,” Trusina said. “It definitely was not as strict or as coached by the coaches. It was more free to play, and the players had more freedom to play offense and stuff.
“When I came here, I was pretty surprised with the physical way of playing basketball, and how you use your body to get in front of your defenders and stuff. It was definitely faster and more intense than back in Czech.”
Ferguson said the biggest factors that stood out to him when he saw Trusina step on to the court for the first time were his ball handling and court vision. He also added that Trusina has improved the most in his on-ball defense and rebounding since joining the team.
“Jakub’s always been a very natural passer and ball handler and a guy that makes other players around him better,” Ferguson said. “He’s become a very tough, physical defender for us this year, and the growth in that area has been a huge help to our team.”
Trusina plans to stay in the United States after graduation, but he hasn’t made his college decision yet. He said he plans to major in finance.
“I definitely want to stay here in the United States, at least for college, and then maybe go back to Europe. That’s probably my plan,” Trusina said. “I want to study finance because I’m kind of interested in investing, so I want to go through the path of investment banking or private equity because I really like math and calculating stuff.”
Trusina averages 6.6 points and is second on the team with 2.6 assists per game for the Bull Dogs, who are 11-4 this season.
“I have definitely learned a lot about basketball itself, and I gained more experience with playing zone defense and offense,” Trusina said. “I just learned to play more for my teammates and to be able to make my teammates and team better with playing good defense and just finding different ways to help the team. That was probably the biggest learning experience.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic wiping out many high school basketball seasons in other states across the country, Trusina said he’s fortunate that he’s been able to play basketball his senior year — but with North in quarantine for the second time this season, Trusina will likely have to wait until the sectional for his next opportunity on the hardwood.
Trusina said he has created many memories with the team and enjoyed the camaraderie, celebrations on the bus rides home after a big win and just simply having fun with the team. One of his favorite on-court memories was hitting the game-winner at the buzzer against Perry Meridian last year.
It’s those memories that he will carry with him for the rest of his life.
