Title: The Prophet and the Prodigy
The press conference room at BYU was charged with tension, the kind that vibrates in the bones before a storm. Cameras blinked like anxious eyes. Reporters leaned in. And Mark Pope, head coach of the Cougars, leaned forward at the podium, fire flickering in his blue eyes.
“Mark my words,” he said, voice resonant and sure, “Andrija Jelavic will go down as one of the greatest to ever wear this jersey. Not could be. Will be.”
The room froze.
A few pens scratched. A few eyebrows climbed. But Pope didn’t flinch. He said it like gospel, with a prophet’s conviction, the kind you don’t question unless you’re ready to be proven wrong.
Jelavic was just a 19-year-old Croatian import, lanky but coiled like a spring, with a jump shot that sang and footwork that whispered of war dances on Dalmatian cobblestones. He had arrived quietly in Provo—a three-star recruit with a name most fans struggled to pronounce. But Pope saw something others missed. Not just talent—texture. Grit. A glint of something ancient and dangerous behind his calm, sea-colored eyes.
“He’s not just a shooter,” Pope said that day, turning to stare down the murmuring crowd. “He’s a killer. Cold. Calculated. Coachable.”
Behind closed doors, Jelavic had already begun turning teammates’ heads. He dissected defenses like a surgeon, his passes surgical, his movement ghostlike. He’d broken two veteran guards in practice—crossed one so hard he slipped, another so badly he fake-retired on Instagram for a day.
But the boldness of Pope’s proclamation wasn’t about stats. It was about belief—his belief in turning potential into inevitability.
Within weeks, Jelavic had turned belief into spectacle. His first college game, he dropped 23 points, including the game-winner—a turnaround fadeaway that made the Marriott Center erupt like Zion itself had cracked open. Pope didn’t even celebrate. He just nodded, like a man watching prophecy unfold.
By mid-season, the national media caught on. “Croatian Coldfront,” Sports Illustrated called him. ESPN dubbed him “The Ice Architect.” Every game he played, he sketched his legend with precision: behind-the-back dishes in traffic, defensive reads like a chess master, a jump shot that bent reality.
The skeptics began to eat their words. Pope’s prediction didn’t look crazy. It looked clairvoyant.
One night, after Jelavic dismantled Gonzaga with a 34-point masterpiece, a reporter asked Pope if he still stood by that bold claim.
Pope smiled, slow and sure.
“I undersold it,” he said.
And in that moment, everyone in the room believed.
—
End.
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