MARSHALL, Texas – Two teams of East Texas Baptist University football players and coaches are back in Texas following separate trips to Poland and Croatia in which the Tigers participated in various activities including football camps, construction projects, and, to a certain degree, remembering the past.
Head coach Mark Sartain, along with two different groups of current players and coaches, spent a week in Krakow, Poland, earlier this month to work with a semi-pro team, the Krakow Tigers, and to conduct American football clinics in the area. Just last week, another group spent a few days in Croatia, helping a local church in Beli Manastir tear down an ancient structure in order to rebuild a new worship building as part of an effort spearheaded by Advancing Native Missions.
It's the fourth summer in which the ETBU football program has taken part in overseas trips. Since 2008, Tiger football players and coaches have spent time in five different countries and Alaska.
"It's a part of what I want in our program," Sartain said of the overseas summer trips. "We're a part of East Texas Baptist University and I think our whole focus as an institution is to send people out with a message, so I think it's very appropriate that we do that with the football program. It's about more than just the game. This is just a part of the experience, learning how to serve, learning how to use the opportunities and influence that we have as football players and coaches. It always gives a different perspective on life, and faith, that I think is healthy for our young men."
The first leg of this summer's activities was in Krakow, Poland, where the ETBU Tigers were guests of the Krakow Tigers. The Krakow Tigers are part of a 32-team semi-pro league in Poland, and the ETBU players and coaches spent two days conducting practice and helping the team with its grasp of American football. The ETBU group also visited three middle schools and spent time with kids talking about football, and Sartain himself was invited to speak at a local university about football and sports marketing.
"We were there with the Krakow Tigers to have kind of an ‘American football experience,' sort of like the NFL Experience," Sartain said. "We saw over 2,000 Polish kids that came through our area, and they got to put on a helmet and shoulder pads, learn how to kick and throw and catch an American football, knock down blocking dummies, that kind of thing. It was a really neat deal."
As part of the trip the ETBU group also did some sight-seeing, including trips to former Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau, located about an hour outside of Krakow. The Tigers also visited other historical sites such as Oscar Schindler's factory museum as well as the ruins of what was Hitler's Jewish ghetto in Krakow itself.
The trip to Auschwitz, one of the most notorious Nazi death camps of World War II, was a humbling experience for both players and coaches alike. The ETBU team was given a guided tour of the facility, which was the largest concentration camp in Poland. From 1941-1942, the gas chamber at Auschwitz was used to kill an estimated 60,000 Jews and Polish prisoners, as well as Russian prisoners of war.
"It was just a chilling, indescribable experience that I personally will never forget, walking on that ground and knowing history and what took place there," Sartain said of the visit to the former death camp. "It really, really puts everything else into perspective, and I think it affected our young men very deeply."
The focus of the second trip, to Croatia, was different than the visit to Poland. ETBU's first summer trip to Croatia in 2008 saw the Tigers come to the aid of a local church congregation with the construction of a new church building. This year the group returned to aid another church with the tearing down of an old facility to allow a new one to be constructed.
As part of the trip, the team was able to return to the former building it helped create and actually worship in the new facility, now three years later.
"It was just neat to see all those people again and see what our work there accomplished," said Sartain. "We sent them a signed football from our team and they had it proudly on display. It was a nice worship time and we really enjoyed seeing some friends again."
The Tigers conducted worship in three different churches in the area, with the main work of tearing down the old building – a total of 16 tons of debris in just three days of work – took place in Beli Manastir.
Sartain said he wants to continue making the trips available to his players in the coming years, and would also like to see ETBU groups make trips to areas in the United States, such as being able to help out in relief areas such as Joplin, Mo., and Alabama due to the destruction caused by tornado outbreaks, in the future.
"Doing these types of things is always very inspiring and humbling," the coach said. "We always come back feeling like we've gotten more than we've given. It's always worth it."
(Courtesy: ETBU Athletics)
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