As the rain begins to fall more heavily one November night in 2003, turning into sleet, and the wind blows stronger and stronger, on a street in downtown Belgrade, a man walking his dog, almost surprised, stops in front of a tall African-American man who seems familiar to him.
As if asking him why he was here in the dead of night - it must be at least an hour after midnight.
The conversation lasts a few minutes and everyone goes their separate ways, preparing for the day ahead.
And that day is a big one for fans of the Partizan basketball club, which welcomes Cibona Zagreb in the Euroleague, the strongest club competition in Europe.
But it is also important for the man with the dog and his interlocutor - trainer Duško Vujošević and American Frederick House.
This is roughly what one of their meetings looked like, not necessarily before that game, because memory fades.
However, in that very game against Cibona - Haus with 39 points, he recorded one of the best games in the recent history of the black and whites in the Euroleague, and Partizan defeated a great rival.
"I was walking around town, one time it was one in the morning and I met him walking his dog. I didn't even know he lived two blocks from me."
"He asked me what I was doing out so late - I said I was impatient for the game, and I was tired of playing video games, so I went out for a walk," House told BBC Serbian.
Duško Vujošević, the most trophy-winning coach in the history of the Belgrade Basketball Club Partizan, He died on April 8th at the age of 66. after a long battle with serious health problems.
"I didn't know what was happening, I disconnected from social media for a while, and then I got a message from a friend: 'Did you hear that Dule died?'"
"I thought it was a bad joke," House says.
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A difficult start for Partizan
The dream of a boy from Kaline, a city in the heart of Texas, who was in love with basketball, was to one day play in the NBA.
But, after playing for the Southern Utah University college team, House had his first professional experience in Belgrade, in the Partizan jersey, whose jersey he wore in the summer of 2002.
The beginning, he recalls, was really difficult.
"At the first training session, only one man knew English - assistant coach Aleksandar Džikić."
"I thought - this is going to be difficult, but I was aware that I had to adapt and learn the language and culture if I wanted to succeed," the American explains.
He received a book as a gift from Vujošević, who had a custom with his players, about the history of Belgrade, and he says that he learned some of his first words of Serbian from it.
Since the trophy expert did not speak English, House had to find a way to communicate with Vujošević in situations when things were happening quickly on the field, and assistant Džikić was not available to translate.
"Dule and I communicated by reading lips and hands."
"My first impression was, 'Man, he's crazy, he's always yelling, I should have gone to some athletic club.'"
"I didn't believe that you could run this much on a basketball team," he describes.
Over time, things "fell into place" and Vujošević became "like a father and mentor" to House.
The American started playing better and better.
How did he choose Belgrade instead of the NBA?
House won two championship titles in the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the state union of Serbia and Montenegro while playing for Partizan, and the American won the hearts of the black and white fans with his attractive dunks and passes.
Training sessions at Partizan were considered extremely strenuous, with players sometimes saying they were even harder than matches.
But House says he got used to it and that Vujošević "expected a lot from the players and didn't want us to take the easy way out."
"He had a work system where you either accept it or leave," House is clear.
In addition to giving books to the players, the coach maintained discipline off the field and knew how to control where they went out and with whom.
This was not the case with House, who at 25 years old was among the more experienced and says that with his military father, who maintained discipline in the house, he "learned that the older ones make sure the younger ones don't get into trouble."
After his first season at Partizan, in the summer of 2003, House found himself in a delicate situation because he had the opportunity to realize his dream - to go to the NBA.
"I had a choice - to go to the Washington Wizards or to return to Partizan."
"I chose Partizan because I wanted to try to win the Euroleague," he says.
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Unfortunately for Partizan fans, House did not win a trophy in the best European competition with the black and whites, but he did provide some memorable games.
It was at a time when American basketball players were still rare in Serbian clubs, so it can be said that House, along with basketball players such as Reggie Freeman (FMP Železnik) and James Scooney Penn (Crvena zvezda), opened the door.
House still remembers two games today, even though more than two decades have passed.
"We played against FMP and their coach Vlade Đurović said that I couldn't shoot, which Dule told me."
"He added, 'Now go kick it as many times as you want, show him,'" House says.
He also remembers that Partizan won that game, which was not the case with the other match he particularly remembers.
An American threw it in. 41 pain against Red Star in the quarterfinals of the 'Radivoj Korac' Cup, but his team lost.
"Coach said during the timeout, 'I know House is in his element, but someone has to step in and help him.'"
"He didn't want me to 'burn out,'" he adds.
There were also situations when they got into an argument during the game, so the black and whites coach sent him to the locker room early.
"We played against Vojvodina, there was a guy there with a tattoo (Milan Gurović, ed. out) and I heard he was the best in the league," House remembers.
The American wanted to show him so much that Vujošević sent him off for being too aggressive on the field.
"He sent me to the locker room, and I told him I was going back to America," House recalls.
The situation was resolved when House explained to him a few days later that he "didn't mean to be disrespectful" and that he was grateful for giving him a chance on the European basketball stage.
Life after Partizan
After leaving Belgrade, House's basketball journey took him through Lithuania, Spain, Russia, Ukraine and - Kosovo, whose independence Serbia does not recognize.
He ended his career with Kosovo's Peja at the end of 2013, and because of that, he had an argument with some Partizan fans.
"I was getting messages on Facebook like 'we won't love you anymore, what have you done'."
He says that before signing for the club from Kosovo, he did not know about the history of the conflict between Serbs and Albanians, nor about NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's military operation began on March 24, 1999, and the reason for the intervention was the persecution of Albanians in Kosovo by Serbian security forces.
"As a boy, I didn't watch television, only sports and school were important to me. I wasn't interested in politics."
"It was important to me to fight and help my family survive," he says.
Now, 13 years later, he says he wouldn't sign a contract with Peć again, but at the time it was the only offer.
"I played half a season in Kosovo, I left the club because they weren't paying."
"I did my job, they didn't do theirs, and that was the end of it," House says.
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As a basketball player for other clubs, House never faced either Vujošević or Partizan.
"If that had happened, it would have been both good and bad. Good because I would have seen him, and bad because both he and I would have had a mission to win...
"Someone would have to lose, and it wouldn't be me," says House, laughing, whose winning mentality still persists today.
For years after 2004, fans wanted him back at Partizan, but that possibility only came up once and it wasn't very serious.
For many former basketball players and fans of Partizan, but not only of this club, Vujošević was more than a coach.
"I felt like (famous boxer) Mike Tyson and I had no idea about life.
"Dule was my Cass D'Amato, the man who made Mike a world champion," House finished with a sigh in his voice.
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