The crisis in Ukraine has captured the world’s attention, and we’re hearing more and more stories of people escaping the chaos ensuing throughout the country.
Former Indiana University basketball standout Mo Creek talked to Fran Fraschilla for the SiriusXM podcast World of Basketball and talked about how he was one of many who had to flee the nation. Creek had been playing basketball in the Ukranian Basketball SuperLeague for MBC Mykolaiv.
It was a difficult situation for Creek to be in, who told Fraschilla he had nothing but love for the people of Ukraine.
“It’s always been love, even if they couldn’t speak my language and I definitely can’t speak theirs, we found a way to communicate with each other, and that just made it so special,” Creek said. “The people are always going to be good in Ukraine.”
Creek shared his experience from living in the country currently being sieged by the Russian military, having to hunker down for several hours at a time in a bomb shelter.
“We were just terrified and when we heard that the siren went off and you know when that siren goes off that means a war has started,” he said. He was living at the time in a city along the Black Sea in southern Ukraine. “Coach Terry… picked me up to go to his apartment building which has a bomb shelter in it and that’s when I started the bomb shelter experience.”
Creek said once he knew he had to get to the shelter, he texted his family members in case something happened.
“You really learn a lot about yourself when you go in a type of situation like that because, one, I did not know if I was going to survive so the first thing I did before I got in the bomb shelter was I texted my mother, ‘I love you. Tell my family I love them,'” he explained. “Because if something does happen that’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to you, you don’t want to not say nothing. At least they have a memory of your last message to them before you pass.”
Creek had to go through a whole process to get out of his basketball contract so he could leave the country. He was a short distance from the Ukraine/Moldova border. Once he did get out of his contract, his primary focus was getting on an airplane in Romania so he could get back to the U.S.
He said leaving Odessa provided a view of what had been going on in the city.
“You had to see the soldiers with guns. You had to see the tanks,” he said. “See everybody going in the same direction as you so now there’s traffic. So I was scared to death about that because something may have happened. I didn’t want the car to stop moving because I felt like if the car stops we’re stopping our progress, that gives them the opportunity to do whatever they need to do.”
It took several hours of standing in line before he eventually crossed in to Moldova. His first stop back in the States was JFK Airport.
“I got on that U.S. soil, and it felt like a weight was off my shoulders,” Creek said.
It wasn’t until he touched down at Dulles Airport and saw his mom that it really hit him.
“That hug was everything,” he said. “That’s when I knew I was home.”