One child in the birthplace of his ancestors, Dobropoljani on the island of Pašman near Zadar, once had a dream on an island hill in which he saw himself playing basketball in America »in the then largest arena in that country; located between the magnificent high mountains and a large calm lake. ”The story becomes strange when it is known that the child was very thin and had a“ sunken chest ”, so Dr. Ivo Radman, a specialist in bone diseases at the Biograd hospital, ordered him to throw the ball with chest with both hands ”. But a member of the literary section of the Zadar Elementary School Petar Preradović, who wrote poems for the school wall newspaper, obviously did not take his dream seriously, so it was only in the first grade of high school that he became more interested in basketball.
Enzo Sovitti
He is brought to the basketball court by the great Enzo Sovitti, and he has to listen to remarks about his appearance every day: "What this little one will do in basketball, he can't stand well." But he knew " "For him, as for all great men, compulsion did not lead to the sea, nor the fear of his peers to whom" his long and slender legs were a target as if created to pass the ball through them. "Problems and difficulties that would embarrass others and removed, they served as springboards for the very top of the glittering basketball sky. The dream of playing in America was repeated before the start of the first team of Zadar in 1964, and next year in the eruptive Jazine, this unique team led by the tireless and inimitable Pino Giergio will win the first title. The young man will then not be overly interested in school and his physical education teacher will tell him to ask his coach to ask for a jersey with the number eleven because of the number of subjects in which he had a unit at the end of the first semester in high school. It is also strange in that story that his English was especially bad.
- There are a lot of details. For example, no one talks about one period, I do not say it negatively, but for the truth, when Krešo Ćosić left the third grade of high school. Which was all done by Enzo Sovitti. Only thanks to Sovitti, who put pressure on his father and everything, Krešo finished school. Enzo also hired me as a math teacher at the school to have Krešo pass those exams and that class. We would train until 6, 7 o'clock, and then we would come to the apartment on Kalelarga and I would do math and physics with him. He would fall asleep to me after about 40 minutes. But everything we had done up to that time would have remained in his head. He would fall asleep from fatigue, he was really Auschwitz then, as we called him. I would make him breakfast in the morning, we would eat that breakfast and then we would repeat. And he finished it, but he couldn't finish English with Professor Jakaš. Enzo and I went with him to the exam, he was taking it in the high school library. Enzo and I walk up and down that big hallway, and he asks me every now and then, "How long does this exam take?" I tell him I don't know. "How come you don't know, so you teach math?" "Well, I don't know what I know." And that 10 minutes, half an hour, 45 minutes. And then Professor Jakaša came out and said: "Listen, he doesn't know anything." And Enzo said: "So what do we pay those fools who keep rehearsals for him, what do they do with him?" And she stopped and looked at him: "What So he's going to rehearsals? '' Every day, 'says Enzo. "We're teaching him, so he'd really learn if I didn't know her ... How come he doesn't know?" The professor came in, Krešo came out, and Enzo said, "Did you see - you knew everything except a few details and she said to come in seven days? ”And then we took him back in seven days. And now he's going to America and he's back, 'Well,
Freshman
At less than twenty-one, he is one of the best basketball players in Europe and has airline tickets to two American universities in his pocket: UCLA, by far the strongest, and Brigham Young, much less well known. “Then he remembered seeing pictures of those mountains and that lake in a brochure, and they were in Utah. Without hesitation, he went straight to that line and boarded the plane. 'But it wasn't that simple. At the university, he is banned from smoking, alcohol, premarital sex ... As a highlight, the basketball star cannot play in official games for the first year because this rule applies to freshmen. And when he asked head coach Stan Watts if it was the biggest gym in America, and this one told him it wasn’t even close, he must have had a good idea.
He continues to play for the national team and after completing his first year of study, the World Cup in Ljubljana awaits him. "On my return to Yugoslavia, I prepared a 'hill' of gifts, but the airport staff did not show much understanding and I had to do everything to get 80 kilograms of my luggage to Belgrade. While looking for 'information', I put my foot under the scales and his hand showed 20 kilos. ”After winning the World Cup and the Yugoslav Cup, he returned to America - his glass overflowed, he was nostalgic and decided to return. But, "accidentally", he is met at the airport by assistant coach Marv Robertson. It is not known exactly what happened then, but something profoundly changed in this young man - he returned and the change was seen by everyone who knew him. And a favorite before, his heart now seems to become an abyss of goodness,
Doug Richards
In the third year of his study, at the beginning of December 1971, the first game was scheduled in the new hall, the construction of which was accelerated in order for the new season to begin. "Its capacity was almost 22,000 seats - more than any NBA hall at the time." He entered the hall for the first time with Doug Richards, whom he would later bring to Zadar as the first foreigner in the history of Yugoslav basketball. 'Krešo and I walked side by side. When we entered the parquet floor from the locker room, Krešo grabbed my hand ... almost in disbelief ... and literally fell to his knees as he said to me: 'Doug, this is exactly the basketball hall I dreamed of many years ago in Yugoslavia. . ' He repeated to me, 'This is exactly the hall I saw in my dream.' 'And when he led the national team in Provo in 1985, at a presentation at that Marriot Center, the packed hall rose from its seats and greeted him with infinitely long applause as the national team members "shudders ran down their backs and tears came to their eyes." The same thing happened to him in Bologna and ... What was in that man they loved so much ? A heart like the ocean.
Career
He played a record 303 matches for the national team of Yugoslavia, and six for the national team of Europe. He won national championships with Zadar in 1965, 1967, 1968, 1974 and 1975, and the Cup in 1970; with Synudine he was Italian champion in 1979 and 1980; with Cibona he won the 1982 Championship, the 1981, 1982 and 1983 Cups, and the 1982 Cup Winners' Cup. At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico and Montreal, he won silver and in 1980 gold in Moscow. He won silver at the World Championships in Montevideo in 1967, gold in Ljubljana in 1970, silver in Puerto Rico in 1974 and gold in the Philippines in 1978. He won silver at the European Championships in Naples in 1969, and in Essen in 1971, only to reach gold in Badalona in 1973, Belgrade in 1975 and Liege in 1977. The European Championships in Turin in 1979 brought him bronze, in Prague in 1981 silver. He was the first foreigner to be selected on the All-American team, top scorer and jumper, and at BYU only his and Danny Ainge’s jersey are retired. As the coach of the Yugoslav national team, he won bronze medals in 1986 at the World Championships in Madrid and the European Championships in Athens and a silver medal at the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988. The most trophy-winning Croatian athlete was named the best basketball player in Europe in 1971 and 1975. Order of merit. The following year, he received the City of Zadar Lifetime Achievement Award and the Order of the Croatian Danica with the figure of Franjo Bučar, and was named the best Croatian athlete of all time by Sportske novosti. Since 1996, Krešo has been in the Hall of Fame, and since 1998, the Croatian National Basketball Cup has been named after him - the Krešimir Ćosić Cup. He received the state award for sports "Franjo Bučar" for his life's work in 2002. In the same year, his three-meter high statue was placed in front of the Jazine hall. which is now located in front of the new Zadar hall that bears his name, in which his jersey was lifted. Zagreb Square near the Sports Hall is named after him, and Zadar and Vukovar have a street with his name.
Wilt Chamberlain
- Wilt Chamberlain was my role model. You ask how he played: Magnificent! Wilt brought into his basketball the subtlety of the finest brushstroke of a Van Gogh. Flashing, clear and bright game. Flawless passing, great game review. And only baskets! Played in the style of billiard manners. Chamberlain gave basketball a different direction, a new meaning. Every approach to the ball was school-proper to him. And in those school characters he gave of himself. And created a new world. Magical, unexpected, always surprising.
Mormons
A once-secret US document dated July 14, 1975, says former BYU star Krešimir Ćosić was recently criticized in the press for organizing a "Mormon sect" in Zadar. Cosic and his 7 followers hold religious ceremonies in a basement apartment in Zadar, which, according to the press, caused surprise and indignation of the entire city. An activist of the League of Communists of BC Zadar says that everyone has the right to religion, but that his actions are incompatible with the role of a "respectable sports figure". Fighters also came forward, and Ćosić translated two Mormon works and wanted to print them in 50,000 copies, but the printing house refused until the approval of the Croatian Secretariat for Education and Culture. Local authorities accuse him of working for the CIA .
Across the Atlantic
- My knees used to kneel when I realized that I had become a first team player and that I had received a T-shirt of the same color as Giergia. And the number was quite close to me, right next to Pin's ten. Zadar played great in 1965 and with each victory approached the title of champion and in the break of the league Giergia played for the national team at the European Championship in Moscow. The newspapers wrote that Pino was great, extraordinary, the best. He returned to Zadar with a silver medal and in training I was looking for every opportunity to hear some detail from the championship, the story of the game of Ivo, Žućko, the opponent. And while we were excited by the thought of how we could be champions, I received an invitation from Ranko Žeravica. For the national team! ... In December 1966, the national team left for the USA and Žeravica took Plećaš, Grubor, Žorga and me on a trip with Korać, Rajković, Daneu, Skansi, Cvetković, Tvrdić, Basin, Ražnatović. Big plane, flight across the Atlantic, impressive New York Kennedy Airport. Hungry and tired, we arrived in the country of basketball, which we have heard and read so much about. Everything was somehow special. Matches, special basketball halls, flashy jerseys, audiences, spectators sitting, eating sandwiches and drinking coffee following every movement of their pets. We played a foreplay in Boston and were really looking forward to the performance of the professionals. Great masters appeared in front of a packed hall and I shivered at the thought of seeing the famous Bill Russell, the great defender, the hoop hunter, to whom Boston had the most thanks for his numerous world titles. It seemed to me that Russell was stopping every Detroit attack. He jumped, jumped and jumped. Russell was not alone because there were grandmasters to grandmasters: Havliček, Jones, Bing ... And an unforgettable show like I had never seen before. It is certain that this match was also responsible for my departure to Provo after three years.
Star and star
»Krešo, what do you know how to do in life, apart from playing basketball? - the senior members of the national team asked me at the Olympic qualifiers in Sofia in 1968. "It's not a problem to finish school, I just don't have anyone to bring me a diploma," I answered, but I was very embarrassed. And in June 1968, Pina and Bora Stanković put me in the European national team to perform at the basketball festival in Belgrade. He also invited Veik Vaini, a Finn from Helsinki, whom I found out a year earlier was studying in Provo. Vainio told me about his trip to the University of Provo and assured me that there would be room for me too and that they would surely be happy to see me. I gave him my address and Zadar won the third title in the spring of '68, I settled in the national team for Mexico, played for the European team and finally was among the national team that brought silver to Yugoslav basketball from Mexico. I raised my nose a bit and started living the life of a star. Night and night we knew how to play cards, chase the highway, we smoked. I sat behind the wheel of a special Audi and my every request was supported by my teammates so that they too could ask, and Pin’s departure to Italy brought a real crisis. Quarrels piled up, quarrels ensued, and everyone in the city of basketball wanted to be important. Then I received a letter from Stan Watts, which Coach Prova ended with a call and a statement that the plane ticket would arrive in Zadar quickly. After Pina, it was my turn, a young basketball player whom no one denied exceptional talent, but who was also publicly said to have a hard time going through life because he would have nothing to do with basketball.
Bill Mokray
The biggest recognition at the university came from the eminent Bill Mokray, an outstanding expert on the American professional market: “One of the first players to be bought in 1973 is Krešimir Ćosić, a second-year student from Yugoslavia, at the University of Provo. If he continues to progress like that, Cosic could dictate a contract for more than a million dollars. "But Kreso rejected both Portland and the Lakers ...
very nice.. article... good morning..