#GDTBATH: Ben Mihailovich
From the moment he knew what college was, Mihailovich knew he wanted to attend Carolina.
Ben Mihailovich has always wanted to be a Carolina student and a sports broadcaster. His first goal came true last year and at about that same time, he also got a jump start on his second goal.
Last fall, while studying abroad in Granada, Spain, as part of Carolina’s Global Launch program, Mihailovich took the initiative to secure an interview with legendary Tar Heel and 2017 national champion Luke Maye about Maye’s professional basketball career in Spain. The interview was published on GoHeels.com.
Tar Heel bred
Like many Carolina students, Mihailovich grew up as a Tar Heel sports fan, especially of men’s basketball.
His Carolina connection runs deep, beginning with his grandfather, Dr. Vasa Mihailovich, who immigrated to the United States from Serbia and secured a job teaching Russian at Carolina in 1961. While his grandfather taught, Mihailovich’s father grew up in Chapel Hill and attended Carolina. He graduated in 1983.
“UNC has always been in my blood,” said Mihailovich ’26. His family moved to Connecticut for his father’s journalism career, but Mihailovich still dreamed of attending Carolina.
“As soon as I learned that I could be a student here — when I first knew what college was — I knew I wanted to go to UNC,” he said.
He said he watched countless games from home, mostly basketball, baseball and football. As a child, he visited Carolina and Chapel Hill regularly, often catching a basketball game, and forged his connection with the University and the town.
“From November to April, the day was sort of planned around when the basketball game was,” he said.
Opening doors as a Tar Heel
Getting to Chapel Hill, however, took a semester longer than he originally expected.
Mihailovich had planned to participate in a study abroad program in Spain during high school, but the trip was canceled due to the pandemic. When he applied to Carolina in the fall of 2022, he was drawn to Carolina Global Launch, which allows first-year students to study abroad in Spain, Ireland or Scotland in the fall semester and then enroll at Carolina in the spring semester.
Mihailovich wanted to study in Spain not only to make up for the experience that he missed but also to work on his goal of becoming fluent in Spanish.
During his semester in Spain, Mihailovich took classes in Spanish language, art history and political science. He said the opportunity to study abroad so early in his undergraduate career gave him the chance to learn to be independent and self-sufficient. Figuring out how to study and navigate the Spanish city, where English is not as widely spoken as in Madrid or Barcelona, he said, made it easier to navigate college life in Chapel Hill after returning.
As luck would have it, as Mihailovich began making Granada home, Maye — one of Mihailovich’s sports heroes — was also set to begin his first season playing for Covirán Granada, the local basketball team in Liga ACB, the major Spanish professional league.
Mihailovich knew Maye would be playing professionally in Granada that fall and was looking forward to attending Maye’s games. After arriving in Granada, Mihailovich contacted the Carolina athletics department, which gave him Maye’s contact information.
The two Tar Heels in Granada eventually caught up for an interview, which Mihailovich hopes will be a first step to a career in sports broadcasting or sports journalism.
The media and journalism major hopes to become a play-by-play announcer for college basketball or to become a sports writer. In Chapel Hill, Mihailovich intends to seek opportunities to work on broadcasts of Tar Heel games for the ACC Network and to cover sports for the Daily Tar Heel.
He recognizes that his chosen career path may take him to any number of places, but he would be happy to remain in North Carolina, working alongside the University and the teams that he has loved and supported for his entire life.
