Incoming Forest Park freshman Dax Huuki drives to the basket during the SaWUSA United World Games 15u basketball tournament in Klagenfurt, Austria, as a representative for the USA. (Courtesy photo)

CRYSTAL FALLS — Some students are fortunate enough to enjoy memorable summer vacations.

Families use the summer break to travel to different parts of the country, as well as overseas, visit famous monuments and parks and take in the sights, sounds and scenery of locales different from their home environment.

Fifteen-year-old Dax Huuki and his family did just that and more.

The incoming freshman at Forest Park was invited to participate in the SaWUSA United World Games in Klagenfurt, Austria, in June where he represented the USA in a 15U basketball tournament. Huuki and his family — mother Tahoney Anderson, stepfather Tim Anderson, brother Mack and grandmother Laura Sartori — spent 10 days in Europe as part of a group of 109 families of athletes competing in different sports at different age levels.

To say the excursion was the trip of a lifetime for Dax and his family is an understatement.

“The friendships with his teammates that were built over such a short amount of time is the absolute takeaway from the whole thing,” said Tahoney, speaking for her shy teenager. “These boys were tearing up at the airport having to say goodbye to each other.

“Their bond was so fast and furious you could see it.”

“We did everything together,” Dax said of he and his nine teammates on the U-15 East squad. “I didn’t really know what to expect but it was definitely worth it.”

The trip was organized by Student Athlete World USA, which provides international tours for “talented and high-character athletes to act as ambassadors of the USA and represent their country competing in the sport they love on an international stage,” according to its website.

The tours are designed to promote athletic development along with leadership development, personal growth, cultural appreciation, world perspective, patriotism and family bonding.

SaWUSA teams competed in women’s lacrosse and basketball for both boys and girls in this year’s United World Games. Dak’s team won its first three games in pool play but lost in the first round of the medal round to another team from the United States.

But while the competition was the centerpiece of the trip, it was by no means most important. Among other activities, the traveling parties saw a variety of European landmarks and cities, including Munich, Salzburg and Venice, and stayed at a 500-year-old hotel in Klagenfurt.

Huuki’s impressions ranged from the weather (“very hot”) to the cuisine (“my favorite was the pancake bites”) to the European penchant for drinking sparkling water (“I didn’t like it.”)

“It was fun,” he said. “It was different to see everything there. What I noticed was a lot of people on bikes. A lot of people walking and stuff.”

Huuki’s involvement with SaWUSA, headquartered in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, began last October when he found out that an anonymous party had recommended him for the tour. As part of the application process, Dax had to write a personal statement, obtain letters of recommendation, provide academic transcripts and submit to an online interview.

Shortly into that interview, the SaWUSA representative said Huuki was in.

“He was accepted during the interview,” Tahoney said. “(The representative) just said, 15 to 20 minutes in, ‘Stop right there, we don’t need to go on. I just feel like you’d be a great fit.'”

As for Dak’s reaction?

“I was super pumped.”

Huuki, a 5-foot-11 guard at this stage in his development, went on to complete his eighth-grade basketball season with Forest Park a couple months later. After that, he continued his individual basketball workouts, kept seeing a personal trainer at Advanedge in Marquette and competed for a Great Lakes Elite AAU squad out of Gladstone.

Now, he stands just a few days away from beginning high school, where he will play football this fall before starting his prep basketball career with the Trojans in the winter.

Dax has hopes to one day earn a Division 1 basketball scholarship and possibly play professional basketball, either in the United States or in Europe.

But that’s far down the road. For now, Huuki has the lifelong memories of an indelible summer of 2023.