Two head coaches. The best men's basketball player in the 116-year history of the program. A starting football quarterback, wide receiver, and punter. An invaluable contributor to the Carthage Athletic Department. And a wife and mother with both playing and coaching experience who never misses a game. All at the same college and all from the same family? No way.

It's true. The five-member Djurickovic family of Bosko, Becky, Steve, Amanda and Pete has made an indelible mark on the Carthage College athletics program in the 25 years since they arrived in Kenosha.
 
Bosko Djurickovic was hired by Carthage in March of 1996 to take over a moribund men's basketball program that had enjoyed only a single winning year in its previous 16 seasons, and hadn't won a College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin championship since Lyndon B. Johnson was President.
 
Bosko played CCIW basketball at North Park College (today North Park University). He served as a Vikings assistant coach from 1975 to 1984 when North Park won an NCAA-record three consecutive Division III tiles in 1978, 1979 and 1980. Bosko was elevated to head coach in 1985 and won both the 1985 and 1987 NCAA Division III Men's Basketball Championships. In addition to his two championship squads, Bosko's North Park teams made NCAA appearances in 1986 and 1990. He was named Basketball Times "Coach of the Year" in 1985 and National Association of Basketball Coaches/Kodak Division III "Coach of the Year" in 1987. Bosko also served as North Park's head baseball coach from 1977 to 1994 and the athletic director from 1987 to 1990.

Bosko stepped aside as Vikings coach after the 1993-94 academic year but found his way back to the bench in 1995-96 as an Elmhurst College assistant coach before being named head coach at Carthage.
 

The team rose to the national spotlight just four years into his tenure at Carthage, winning the CCIW championship in 1999, the first for the program in 35 years. Bosko went on to win five conference championships over his 24 seasons in Kenosha. The program also made four NCAA tournament appearances on Bosko's watch, including a run to the 2002 final four, a year in which the team finished with a win in the third-place game and an overall record of 28-2.

He was named NABC Midwest Region "Co-Coach of the Year" in 2010 and CCIW "Coach of the Year" in 2002, 2010 and 2017. Bosko retired after the 2019-20 season with a 34-year record of 567-326 (371-247 in 24 years at Carthage, 196-79 in 10 years at North Park), for an overall winning percentage of .635. Bosko's 567 victories rank 30th all-time among NCAA Division III coaches, while his winning percentage at Carthage (.600) ranks second on the school's all-time list, and his 371 wins ranks him first all-time, ahead of Herbert "Hub" Wagner (170-107, 1928-43). His 305 career CCIW wins places second only to Illinois Wesleyan University's Dennie Bridges on that all-time list.
  
Bosko's wife, Becky Djurickovic, is the former Becky Johnson. In the years before the CCIW recognized women's basketball, Becky was a three-time all-conference basketball player at North Park. She finished her playing career as the school's all-time leader in assists and set a season record for field-goal percentage (.529). Becky was also a three-year softball letterwinner for the Vikings.
 
In 1986-87, she began the first of two stints as the North Park head women's basketball coach (47-43, 6 years from 1987-89 and 1993-95). In 1988, North Park won its one and only CCIW title, and Becky was named CCIW "Women's Basketball Coach of the Year." That 1988 team also qualified for the NCAA Division III Women's Basketball Championship. CBS-TV conducted a joint interview with Bosko and Becky in March 1988 as a unique husband and wife coaching team, with Bosko coming off a 1987 season that saw North Park go 28-3 and win a national title and Becky winning the 1988 conference championship.

Becky also coached softball at North Park for the 1986 and 1987 seasons. From 1982 to 1998, she taught health and physical education at Taft High School in Chicago, followed by a couple of years teaching the same at Dever Elementary School. In 2000, a few years after the family moved from Northbrook, Ill. to Pleasant Prairie, Wis., Becky began teaching at Bradford High School in the Kenosha Unified School System.  She also coached the girls basketball team at Bradford for three seasons (2004-06). Becky retired in 2019 after a 36-year teaching career.
 
The 1996-97 academic year was my third as Carthage's sports information director, as well as Bosko's first season as head coach. I had no idea how close I would become to the entire family. Bosko being Bosko, pretty much volunteered his kids to work for me—none of whom ever seemed to mind. Amanda, who will also answer to Mandi, was nine years old at the time, Steve was eight and Pete was five years old.
 

"When the three kids were younger," remembers Bosko, "it couldn't have been more fun, because they were all in a place that they loved and enjoyed. I remember Pete at six or seven years old running around the gym and thinking that was the greatest thing ever. For all three, being around the Carthage program was the only life they had really experienced, so being involved with the program just came naturally. It didn't have to be that way. They could have been musicians or something else, but they were all athletically-minded kids who enjoyed that experience."

Both Mandi and Pete started working for me in November 1996 when basketball got under way. Chris Dose, my spotter, would hand Pete statistics from our mid-court seats, and Pete would run them upstairs to the press box (where the radio announcers and visiting sports information directors worked). Between his sprinter's speed and an ability to vault a bleacher railing, the delivery service was impeccable.

At some point, Pete got too cool for us and went on an extended sabbatical. Years later, he returned to help Bosko with the football public address and has since taken over that job from his dad.
 

Mandi started helping out at the basketball scoring table with statistics when she was about 13 years old. She eventually worked her way up to a spotter's role for both football and basketball, which as any SID will tell you, might be the most valuable person at a game. Around 2010, I trained her to do electronic statistics for soccer and lacrosse. Mandi was an incredible asset for my last 10 years on the job. She has always been an integral part of the men's basketball program, particularly helping out on game day, keeping the scorebook for the junior varsity team or working Bosko's camps or fundraisers. She remains involved with Carthage Athletics Media Relations, doing "live stats" for not only soccer, but lacrosse, volleyball, basketball and occasionally even baseball and softball.  "My role with basketball was always to keep the guys in line," says Becky, "and do their laundry. That's how Mandi learned, and now she's taken over folding shirts." Trust me, Mandi does a lot more than just folding shirts.

"It was a lot of fun being around Carthage Athletics," recalls Mandi. "I remember Steve saying that when you're that age, you think that all college athletes should be in the NBA. I have such vivid memories of the 2002 final-four season, who we played and how we played and everything else. I was sort of a team manager then, folding t-shirts, and it's never stopped. Here I am at age 34 putting together campus visit information sheets for this year's recruiting effort. I love Carthage. I love watching sports, and I get paid to watch games. I am an accountant and a numbers person, and I love doing stats. It's fun for me."
 
Today, Mandi is a senior financial analyst for Jockey International, Inc. in Kenosha. She's been with Jockey for 13 years since starting an internship in January 2009, after graduating from Carthage later that year with a bachelor's in both accounting and Spanish.
 
"Carthage basketball was a little overwhelming when I was a kid," Steve admits now. "I went to all the practices, and a lot of players at the time seemed like NBA guys to me. The 2002 team turned out to be the main reason I went to Carthage. Jason Wiertel, Antoine McDaniel, Rob Garnes, Theo Powell, Jim Oboikowitch and Bart Fabian were the players I looked up to, and watching how successful they were, both at Carthage and after Carthage, was one of the major reasons why I wanted to go to school here."

Before Steve got to enroll at Carthage, there was something called high school. After his senior year at Bradford in 2007, he was named Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association Division 1 first-team all-state, Associated Press honorable mention all-state, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel honorable mention all-area, Southeast Conference "Player of the Year," first-team All-SEC, Kenosha News first-team All-Kenosha County and the 2007 Holy Rosary "Outstanding Male Athlete of the Year".

"Steve was the only one of the three that I think I could have coached," says Bosko, "because he took direction better than the other two. Steve had such a great senior year at Bradford, that there was some NCAA Division I or II interest, but most of it was along the lines of 'we can't promise you anything.' That approach didn't appeal to Steve, and he decided pretty quickly to go to Carthage."

"With Steve," remembers Becky, "the college choice was a 100-percent certainty, because it was always his dream to play basketball at Carthage."
 

At Carthage between 2008 and 2011, Steve was a two-time NABC first-team All-America selection and a four-time "D3Hoops.com" All-American. He is the only player in "D3hoops.com" history to win both the National Rookie of the Year (2008) and National Player of the Year (2010) awards. Steve was also a four-time first-team All-CCIW selection (one of only seven four-time winners in CCIW history) and a two-time winner of the CCIW's "Fred Young Most Outstanding Player Award."
 
Steve finished his playing career as Carthage's all-time leading scorer with 2,547 points (third all-time in CCIW history and 15th all-time in NCAA Division III) and 649 assists (second all-time in the CCIW). He led the CCIW in scoring and assists all four years, the only player to ever do so. 

Off the court, Djurickovic was named 2010 College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA)/ESPN the Magazine College Division Third-Team Academic All-America® and named 2011 Capital One First-Team Academic All-America®. He was awarded the NCAA post-graduate scholarship in 2011 and was also the recipient of the prestigious Jostens Trophy, presented annually to the best basketball student-athlete in NCAA Division III.

Steve graduated in 2011 with a bachelor's degree in exercise and sport science and received his master's degree in education, also from Carthage, in 2018. He was inducted into Kenosha Public Schools' Hall of Fame in 2017 and the Carthage College Athletics Hall of Fame in 2020.

After graduation, Steve spent two years as a part-time assistant coach under his dad, followed by six years as a full-time men's assistant coach. Bosko retired on August 1, 2020, and Steve was immediately named Carthage's 22nd head men's basketball coach.
 
"I don't feel any pressure at all following my dad as head coach," says Steve. "I see all that as a positive opportunity to compete in the one of the best NCAA Division III leagues in the country. I like where our program stands right now, and I couldn't be more excited at where I think we're going to be in a few years. We have an excellent freshmen class and some good transfers. I think the closeness of this group is the best I've seen since I started coaching at Carthage."

"I am so lucky to have my family," says Steve. "All of them have been right with me ever since I enrolled at Carthage in the fall of 2007.  Mandi does so much. She does academic tutoring, social media, or whatever the team needs. She's our team mom and our team mentor.  She also does so much for the school's athletic program. She puts in so many hours, that sometimes I forget she has a nine-to-five job. We are so thankful to have her around. We feel the same way about Pete, although he's a little farther away in Mundelein, Ill. Pete, his wife, Erin, and their young daughter Katarina have been to a couple of our practices already this year. Katarina holding a basketball on the court certainly brings back memories of Pete doing the same thing at a young age."
 

Just to show that the Carthage connections never end in this family, Steve met his fiancé, Lisa Waltz, at Carthage. Waltz served as a graduate assistant women's soccer coach in 2014 and 2015 and as acting head coach in 2016. She received her master's in education from Carthage in 2016 and was promptly hired by Alverno College as head women's soccer coach for the Inferno.

"I was the one of the three kids who initially said I was not going to Carthage," points out Pete. Using the sprinter's speed that we harnessed back in 1996, Pete became a star football quarterback at Kenosha Bradford High School. He was named Kenosha News first-team All-Kenosha County and first-team All-Southeast Conference South Division quarterback his senior year, first-team all-county and first-team All-Southeast Conference quarterback as a junior, both on state quarterfinal teams. In baseball, he was twice named all-county and was honored as the 2009 Holy Rosary "Outstanding Male Athlete of the Year".

"Pete visited Wittenberg University, Marietta College, Otterbein University, California Lutheran University, North Central College and Augustana College," says Bosko. "He surprised all of us a little by choosing Carthage, but it all worked out. I think that shared experience with Carthage athletics has kept all three kids close since graduation."

"I always knew that Mandi and Steve would go to Carthage," recalls Becky, "but I was a little surprised that Pete did."

With Carthage football, Pete was moved from quarterback to wide receiver his sophomore year and later named the team's punter and kick returner. In 2012, he was named CCIW "offensive player of the week" after catching five passes for 208 yards against North Park, including a 99-yard touchdown reception that broke Carthage and Art Keller Field game records and tied a CCIW mark. He graduated in 2014 with a bachelor's in both in communication and public relations.
 
Today, Pete lives in Mundelein, Ill. and works as a sales supervisor for Chicago Beverage, a beverage distributor based in downtown-Chicago. Pete's supervisor is Dan Mulkerin, who happened to play on Bosko's 1985 and 1987 national-championship teams at North Park.  "That connection was total happenstance," says Bosko, "because I had no idea that Dan was even working for Chicago Beverage."

"My main Chicago Beverage areas are the north-Chicago suburbs" says Pete, "and I supervise a team of guys who are doing routes."

As additional evidence that Carthage connections never end in this family, Pete is married to the former Erin Quinn, who played basketball at Carthage for four years between 2012 and 2015. Quinn graduated in 2015 with a double major in communications and public relations and is currently a marketing associate for Medline Industries in Northfield, Ill.

"Staying at Carthage was the best decision I ever made," says Pete. "I played on some good football teams, I got to watch Steve play on some really good basketball teams, and I met my future wife there. It worked out great. I ran around the gym when I was five years old, and in some ways, not much has changed. I took my daughter, a year and half old, to one of Steve's practices in early-October, and she was having a great time doing the same thing I used to do. After all this time, we're still running around the gym and still enjoying it."
 

"It's family" says Becky, "and Carthage is family for all of us. That's what all three kids grew up with, and I think all three of them see Carthage as an extension of their homes."