Once he gets his cap and gown and graduates, Oak Lawn’s Marco Budzak will be going places.
He’s joining four classmates to help build a hospital in Bolivia. Through the Spartans Without Borders club, they are going help build Bethel Hospital in Amachuma.
“I want to explore a lot of aspects of life to see what’s possible,” Budzak said. “This is an opportunity to help impoverished people. I want to be a doctor.
“I want to see as different of an environment as you could possibly be in and help learn and adapt to whatever can possibly happen.”
Before he flies to Bolivia, though, Budzak has some business to take care of on the volleyball court as the Spartans could have of their best teams in recent memory.
The 6-foot-2 senior outside hitter enters the season with 521 career kills and will take aim at the top two in program history. Randy Hansen finished with 975 kills, while Al Russo had 911.
Because he will be focusing on his academics in college, Budzak isn’t sure if he will continue to play volleyball, so he’s treating this season as if it could be the end of his career.
“This may be my last for everything,” he said. “I want to put in as much work as possible. I’m going to the gym as much as possible. I’m trying to do everything I can, not only for myself but for the team and the younger players.”
Oak Lawn coach Matthew Hunt is excited about this spring. He feels the Spartans have the most depth in more than 10 years, including eight newcomers from a junior varsity team that finished undefeated in the South Suburban Red.
Having someone with Budzak’s talent and experience, however, will be vital.
“He has progressed and grown as a player,” Hunt said of Budzak. “His freshman year, he was a sub that would come in on the opposite side. He was a very good hitter but struggled with passing.
“He really worked on his passing. We look forward to seeing him take more of a leadership role now that some of the seniors are gone and see how he handles that.”
As for Bolivia, Budzak and fellow Spartans Without Borders members Emiliano Lopez, Belal Moutaouakkil, Isaac Bayas and Eli Kulpinski
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will be working on a project that has been going on for a year in the rural part of that country.In October, the club hosted a Bowling for Bolivia fundraiser so the five can make the trip.
Budzak doesn’t know what to expect once he gets there.
“It all depends on what they want us to do,” he said. “A few years ago, they needed labor like laying concrete. We could be installing different things and moving different things.”
There was a period in the past when Budzak was a swimmer putting up impressive times. Back then, he thought he had a shot at being a college swimmer.
But life threw him a curve in seventh grade when he started developing allergies to chlorine. Enter volleyball as Budzak’s mother, Lucia Kellnerova, helped him find another sport.
“It was COVID and not a lot of contact sports were open, so she said I could choose between tennis and volleyball,” he said of his mother. “Volleyball seemed like it would be more fun.”
Between volleyball, schoolwork and other extracurricular activities, Budzak remains pretty busy. And that’s the way he likes it.
“I’m not the type of person who can sit around all day,” he said, “I like to do stuff and to get active. I would rather have too much to do than to do nothing.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.