How did Hugh Nibbley become a spiritual mentor to an atheist basketball star from Croatia?

This is one of six episodes in our podcast series based on the book entitled Hugh Nibbley observed.

BYU Professor Hugh Nibli was so focused on his unending stream of urgent writing assignments

that he never developed an interest in team sports. So how did he become a spiritual mentor to an atheist basketball star from Croatia?

Those who are familiar with Hugh Nibley's books naturally think of him as a, well, bookish kind of

person. How could anyone who had handwritten, typed, and organized 250,000 3-5 note cards,

with a linear measure equal to the height of Kimball Tower building on the BYU campus, have time

for anything else.

Especially considering that, in addition, Hugh and Phyllis were raising eight bright and energetic

children in their small Provo home. Likewise, though Hugh was, as he put it, furiously active in the

church, he founded it a challenge to accept administrative callings as his

state president Richard H. Craycroft learned while conducting a Temple Recommend interview.

During the course of the interview, Craycroft asked Nibbley if he would accept a calling

on the High Council. Nibbley said, oh, that would be fun, provided that you don't just sit

around and talk about problems and talk about things that could be improved and changed, and provided that you don't sit and waste my time that I could be using elsewhere, if you don't do that, then I would be happy to be on the High Council.

So Craigcroft laughed and said, Hugh, you know, maybe we don't need you on the High Council, because that's what

we do. We sit around and we talk about things like that. So I signed his recommend, and he went on

his way. Hugh Nibbley was not much for high councils, or for that matter, BYU faculty meetings.

That much is obvious. But did you know that he was constantly engaged in a quiet,

large-scale, personal ministry? Not just answering questions of scores of students each semester,

not merely writing back to the hundreds of inquiries from ordinary members who would send him letters,

but also to a roommate of his son, Alex, a man from

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