Audrey and Luka Milicevic

Jan 28, 2022

In 2009, I had just returned with my Racer’s soccer teammates after our first ever NCAA tournament appearance. We lost to Virginia Tech, and although it was a good game, I was sad that our season was over. I was catching up on missed class work, when I got a message on Facebook from Luka Milicevic, a member of the men’s tennis team. ‘What was the result of your game versus Virginia Tech?’ We messaged back and forth until he got up the nerve to ask me to eat with him at Winslow. I still to this day laugh at the fact that our first date was at Winslow! I remember him being nervous, but I thought he was so handsome and TALL! Plus, he had an accent, so I didn’t really care that he was so nervous. That meal was followed by a couple dates walking around campus, playing tennis at Bennie Purcell Courts, and a first kiss in the Hester parking lot. That’s where our love began, and it continued to grow as we finished our last couple of years as student athletes. We graduated together in 2011. He had already met my parents many times, but I finally met his dad, who flew all the way from South Africa, which is where Luka came from to play tennis at MSU. I spent most of 2011-2012 driving back and forth to Murray from Nashville to see Luka, who decided to stick around and get his graduate degree! And then in 2013, Luka asked me to marry him where we had relocated together in Nashville, TN. We married in 2014 and had our first child, Charley Luka Milicevic, in November 2018. We are expecting our second (a girl!) in April 2021. I often think how lucky I am to have ended up at the same university as Luka. Murray State has been such a beautiful blessing in my life and an integral part of our love story. When we make it back to Murray for homecoming, walking the campus is like reliving our journey. We even took our son, Charley, to his first homecoming in 2019. He met Racer One, spent time on the soccer field that made me a champion, and even crawled on the sidewalks where mom and dad walked, talked, and fell in love. Thank you, Murray State, for leading me to my #RacerSoleMate