By Kit Swiecki
Attending a University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point men’s basketball game seems like an odd place to realize what is most important in my life. Thirty years after going to my first game, that is exactly what happened.
As a kid growing up in Stevens Point in the 1980s, I loved to play and watch basketball. I attended Coach Dick Bennett’s summer UWSP basketball camps and idolized the players. I would attend all the home games, usually with my father. We would cheer for the likes of Terry Porter and Tim Naegeli. The next day in the gym I would try to copy Dimitric Roseboro’s moves. I would practice free throws in order to shoot them as well as Brad Soderberg. I would grab rebounds during YMCA pickup games while imagining that I was Kirby Kulas. I would try to emulate the toughness of Todd Christianson.
After graduating from Pacelli High School, I went to New York to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and joined the Army. I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful military career as a general surgeon in places like Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Alaska, Hawaii, San Antonio, Honduras, Afghanistan and Iraq.
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