SPORT / SPORTS
MUCH MORE THAN JUST A GAME A full century of Serbian basketball It was back in 1923 that an envoy of the Red Cross from California came to Serbia and demonstrated “folk sports”, including basketball W hat kind of connection exists between a professor of folklore and the Red Cross? From the jump off, we’d say none whatsoever. But if we say that the professor in question was an Amer- ican called William Wyland, and that he visited Serbia back in 1923, then everything becomes much clearer. This Red Cross delegate was a visionary, because it was soon after his arrival that basketball became the peo- ple’s sport of the former Yugoslavia. That only required one thing: for someone to explain to us how basketball is played. He did so in the yard of the Kralj Petar I Pri- mary School near Kalemegdan, where the oldest basket- ball hoop in Serbia still stands to this day. Exploring the
BA. Basketball clubs were initially formed as special sec- tions within the framework of football clubs, while histo- rians say that the biggest competition during the period of World War II was the Sokolovsko slet in Borovo. The first official game of the national team was played in April 1947, at the European Championship in the then Czech- oslovakia, when we played against the team of the Sovi- et Union. We didn’t have cause for celebration then, nor three years later at the FIBA World Championship in Ar- gentina, when we finished last among the ten teams that competed. The first basket netted for the national team at the world championship was scored by the great Nebojša Popović, who was a player, but also a coach and selector. Popović, with other pioneers of Yugoslav basketball, like Bora Stanković, Aleksandar Gec and Srđan Kalember, didn’t give up and was ultimately rewarded for his efforts – with a silver medal at the 1961 European Champion- ship. That was the first of many medals that our nation- al team has won in the biggest competitions: European and world championships, but also the Olympic Games. Few people know that the success of the men’s team on the international stage was actually preceded by our lady basketball players, who competed in their first in- ternational match on 21 st September, 1946, in Bucha- rest, at the first Balkan championship. The first match and the first victory... They beat their Romanian hosts with a score of 23:6. The medal winning series began at the 1968 European Championship in Italy, when our na- tional team finished second and it was widely reported that “Yugoslavia played the most beautiful basketball at the championship.” That’s how it was back then and how it’s remained to this day. Even when we didn’t win, we played like fight- ers and in a way that was beautiful to watch; we played a modern style... Basketball has been woven into our DNA over a century and remains the number one sport in Ser- bia. Professor Wyland wasn’t wrong - we play for a per- fect score! We hope that right now, perhaps while you’re reading these lines, the Serbia national team is winning games and heading for the throne at the current World Cup, which is this year being held in Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines. And whatever happens, basketball will always be played and loved in these lands.
archives of the Basketball Federation of Serbia reveals that the first ever game was played in the very yard of that school. We learnt the rest by ourselves, and did so to such a level that we’ve often succeeded in outplaying even the “teachers” from America. The Basketball Federation of Serbia (KSS) has classi- fied the October 1923 visit of Professor Wynard as mark- ing the “birth” of the game under hoops in our lands, and this great jubilee is being celebrated year-round. The crowning event will be the Festive Academy scheduled for 12 th December, the anniversary of the founding of the KSS, which will this year celebrate its 75 th anniversa- ry(KSS was founded on 12 th December 1948 in Belgrade). Serbia, then as part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, made its international basketball competition debut in 1936, when the country also became a member of FI-
106 | Košarka » Basketball
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