Marissa Kastanek is way more than a basketball player. That’s why we didn’t just talk hoops when she recently spoke to Swish Appeal. Born in Nebraska, she played at NC State (2009-13) before turning pro. Since 2015, she has been living in Poland, playing for Arka Gdynia beginning in 2019. She’s even played for the Polish national team.
Her upbringing taught her the importance of helping others, so she founded WISDOM Fellowship, which engages in various charity activities all over the world. She discussed that and more with Swish Appeal, including:
On worshipping God through sports:
Worship is how you live, how you thank God, how you use your gifts that you’ve been blessed with, in a way that will shine light onto God. When I say, “worshipping in sports”….a lot of us were given gifts of athleticism. I had to work hard to improve them, but I was given a gift by God and it was to be athletic, to be a hard worker. When God makes something, he wants it to do what he made it for. A bird is worshipping God when it’s singing and flying. A tree is worshipping God when it’s growing and has leaves. A dog is worshipping God when he’s running and playing and doing all of his fun stuff. And we are worshipping God by playing our sport to the best that we can.
On going to NC State instead of homestate Nebraska:
The coaches at Nebraska said I was too small and they didn’t necessarily want me. They said that I could come there, but I wouldn’t play that much, so I was like, “Why would I want to come there?” And that coach there later apologized to me, she’s not there anymore, she was like, “Man, we missed out.”….When I was being recruited, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) was in my opinion the best basketball conference in the country and I was getting recruited by many schools, but when I went to North Carolina for a tournament, there was Duke, NC State, North Carolina and Wake Forest, and when I stepped foot in North Carolina, the state, I was like: “Wow, this is amazing.”
A special thank you to Michał Piaskowski of VBW Gdynia for arranging the interview. Learn more about WISDOM’s work: https://www.wisdomfellowship.com/.
