Growing up in Zaborze, Poland, Michigan State center Szymon Zapala did not begin as a basketball player. Instead, imagine trying to get by a defenseman in hockey that would eventually become seven feet tall.
“I was technically playing defense, but I was not very good,” Zapala said recently during MSU’s media day.
Apparently, it’s not that difficult.
“My hometown was a big — a nice hockey (town), so that’s why I kind of started playing that,” Zapala said. “But then I remember one day — that’s how I started playing basketball — it was already the offseason for hockey, and we already did our exams in school. So, we were just going to school, just to watch films and movies, whatever — and there was a basketball tournament organizing at the middle school.”
Of course, Zapala was quite tall and decided to join in.
“I went and asked my P.E. teacher, ‘Can I be on the team?’” Zapala said. “He agreed. He took me with him, and then my future middle school coach — he saw me just running around, and he was like, ‘You’re so tall. You’ve gotta play basketball. I promise you’re gonna make a living with that.’
“I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ So, he convinced me. He was calling my parents — he was calling my parents literally every day. He convinced me to go to one practice. I said, ‘OK, I’m just going to try and see (if I like it).’
“I went to one practice and fell in love with the sport. Just immediately wanted to do that. I wanted to play. I convinced my parents and my brother — I convinced my parents to switch out of my middle school, went to that middle school, started playing basketball, then everything started going wherever.”
Eventually, Zapala ended up at SMS PZkosz Wladyslawowo for high school. College basketball is not as big of a deal in Poland as it is in the United States, so there were limited opportunities for him to get exposed to the sport.
One such chance arose because former Gonzaga standout Przemek Karnowski had once attended the same school as Zapala. Their times at the school did not overlap, but Gonzaga made a run to the title game in 2017, and Karnowski playing on the big stage piqued Zapala’s interest.
“Knowing that he was playing in the Final Four, I was like, ‘I want to watch it,'” Zapala said. “So, that was the first time (I got exposed to college basketball) ... I think that was my first contact with actually seeing coaches at colleges and doing stuff.”
Michigan State lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to Kansas that year, but Zapala still said that he'd heard of Tom Izzo.
Once high school was over, Zapala followed Karnoswki’s footsteps and joined a Division I college basketball program in the United States. Gonzaga did not come calling from Spokane, Washington, but Zapala ended up signing his National Letter of Intent to Utah State back in May of 2020.
Zapala did not play much during his three years in Logan. After averaging less than five minutes per game over those seasons, he decided to transfer to Longwood prior to the 2023-2024 season.
It was there where Zapala was able to flourish a lot more. He appeared in all 35 of the Lancers’ games and started 24 of them. In addition, he was a member of an NCAA Tournament team for the third time in his four years of college basketball.
After not appearing in either of Utah State's two NCAA Tournament games he was there for, Zapala was able to finally get into a tournament game against top-seeded Houston. He scored six points and grabbed three rebounds in 18 minutes, but Longwood lost.
Full of knowledge of how winning programs operate and boasting plenty of experience, Zapala entered the transfer portal again. Michigan State and Izzo called him up, and now he’s in East Lansing.
“I’ve been to all levels (of college basketball) right now, honestly, so you can see different things showing up in different levels," he said. "But, in the end — I was fortunate enough to be on the teams that competed every day, no matter what.”
With respect to Utah State and Longwood — the goal at Michigan State is not to just make the NCAA Tournament. The goal is to be one of the last teams standing for a national title. Zapala knows that, and he is ready to try and get well past the first round of the tournament for the first time.
“The aspirations and goals for this team (drew me here),” Zapala said. “You don’t just play — you play to win big. You want to win big by being here. You see all this — the history and the culture that was in the past years, previous years — and you want to hold on to that.
“It’s an amazing opportunity. Like, I don’t even have the words to describe (it). I’m just grateful for the opportunity that was given to me, and I’m just trying to deliver.”
Zapala will get his chances to deliver in his first — and what will be his only — season with a high-major college basketball program. His Michigan State Spartans begin their season against Monmouth on Monday night.
Not too shabby for a former struggling hockey defenseman from Central Europe.
