He stood 6'11". He declined the NBA. He translated the Book of Mormon under Communist surveillance. Then he helped rebuild his country from a diplomat's desk while quietly dying of cancer — and never stopped smiling.

Krešimir Ćosić was the most complete basketball player Europe ever produced. He was also something rarer: a man whose faith, intellect, and warmth outgrew every arena he entered. The Smile is the story of how he became that man — and what it cost him.

Assembled from his unfinished memoirs, recorded recollections, and the memories of those who loved him, this literary memoir traces an extraordinary arc: from a hollow-chested teenager on the Zadar waterfront, to All-American at BYU, to gold medalist in Moscow, to Deputy Ambassador of Croatia in Washington — all while practicing a faith that made him a dissident in his own country, and a legend everywhere else.

"In all the years I have known him, including the last year when he was personally suffering a great deal, I never saw him without a smile." Senator Orrin G. Hatch, United States Senate, 2018

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By Ana Ćosić Pajurin · Foreword by Senator Orrin G. Hatch