Miloslav Kříž

Miloslav Kříž

Miloslav Kříž (born May 29, 1924 - † May 20, 2013 in Rožmitál pod Třemšínem ; also known as Miloslav Kriz) was a doctor of law , basketball player from Czechoslovakia , sports official and FIBA ​​commissioner as well as trainer. The basketball player belongs to the small group of recognized personalities in international sport whose attitudes and merits have been honored with the " FIBA Order of Merit ". Miloslav Kříž lived in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1968 to 1971 . At that time he lived in Osnabrück . After his early return to the former ČSSR, the lawyer lived with his family in the town of Rožmitál pod Třemšínem (German Rosenthal), in the Středočeský kraj region ( Czech Republic ), located on the upper reaches of the Skalice .

Basketball player in Prague

Miloslav Kříž played for Uncas Prague from 1940 to 1943 and for BC Sparta Prague from 1944 to 1948 . This period is marked by the time of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia under the Reich German Nazi dictatorship and the SS terror. This was followed by the post-war period when the Communist Party came to power in Czechoslovakia, in 1948 with the “ February revolution ”.

Trainer and Coach

Club teams in Prague

From 1946 to 1968 Miloslav Kříž was a successful coach and trainer for various Prague women's (Sparta) and men's teams (Sparta and ATK) . The women's teams from Sparta Prague trained the trainer and coach in the periods 1945 to 1950 and 1953 to 1964. The women's team of Sparta Prague the head coach could earn five times the title of basketball master Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia women's national team

Miloslav Kříž coached the women of the national team of Czechoslovakia and the ČSSR in the periods from 1946 to 1948 and 1960 to 1968. He reached  third place at the women's world championships in 1967 and second place at the European championships in 1962 and 1966.

FIBA All Stars

From 1964 to 1968 Miloslav Kříž was coach of FIBA in nine European basketball games , including eight FIBA ​​festival games, together with Robert Busnel ( France ), Carmine "Nello" Paratore (Italy) and Witold Zagórski ( Poland ) Appointed "All Stars".

• 1964 - Celebration in recognition of the first European Basketball Cup title for Real Madrid in the “ Palacio de Deportes ” in Madrid : on May 17th, European selection - Real Madrid 91: 87.
• 1965 - 1st and 2nd FIBA ​​Festival in Krakow : on October 15, European selection - Real Madrid 101: 83 and on October 16, European selection - Wisla Krakow 70: 78
• 1966 - 3rd and 4th FIBA-Festival in Ljubljana : on October 13th European selection - Simmenthal Milano 89: 91 and on October 15th European selection - Olimpia Ljubljana 102: 94
• 1967 - 5th and 6th FIBA ​​Festival in Antwerp : on November 1st European selection - Real Madrid 124: 97 and on November 3rd European selection - Racing Bell 112: 101
• 1968 - 7th and 8th FIBA ​​Festival Belgrade : June 14th European selection - Real Madrid 72:56 and June 16th European selection - Estrella Roja 96: 79

The FIBA ​​All Star players used included the national players Krešimir Ćosić (then Yugoslavia / Croatia ), Ivo Daneu (then Yugoslavia / Slovenia ), Radivoj Korać (then Yugoslavia / Serbia ), Emiliano Rodríguez ( Spain ) and Jiri Zidek (then ČSSR / Czech Republic), from the group of EuroLeague's 50 Greatest Contributors , the fifty most important personalities in the history of the ULEB Euroleague, named by the latter in a list published in 2008.

VfL Osnabrück

In the Bundesliga of the German Basketball Federation (DBB), Miloslav Kříž worked in the 1967/1968 and 1968/1969 seasons as a coach and coach for the Bundesliga basketball team at VfL Osnabrück . In the years before, VfL President Friedel Schwarze had always seen the need to hire a professional, successful coach from abroad in order to meet the requirements and the formulated objectives. The particularly high demands placed on a trainer and coach resulted from the fact that the VfL team had numerous national players and “strong personalities”. The commitment of the Prague trainer and coach was made possible because Friedel Schwarze succeeded in agreeing a financing model with the then DBB President Hans-Joachim Höfig in order to carry out the “work on the floor” of the VfL team, who is also the national coach of the men's national team. To remunerate head coaches appropriately. The cooperation between the first cup winner of the DBB (1967) and the DBB was planned for two years. VfL head coach Kříž was able to lead his new team to the runner-up championship in 1968 and to the German basketball championship in 1969. He also reached the final of the DBB Cup with the “VfL master team” in 1969, the year of the championship success.

One of the foundations for his success in the 1968/69 season was that, as a very experienced trainer and coach, he managed to integrate five young players, the later national players Meyer and Rupp were still youth players, into the "new" VfL team. The six Bundesliga players of the core team, Wilfried Böttger, Egon Homm , Ingbert Koppermann , the "Basketball Player of the Year 1969" Helmut Uhlig , the then "Mister Basketball" in Germany Klaus Weinand and the stateless "basketball virtuoso " Rassem Yahya sent VfL head coach Kříž in Training again and again with his usual soft voice and a friendly smile up the many stairs or the "infinitely numerous" steps of the grandstand of the Osnabrück Castle Wall Hall in a sprint to strengthen your fitness for the decisive moments of the championship games. Miloslav Kříž's successor in Osnabrück was the multiple Czechoslovak national player Karel Baroch, the most successful international basketball player who played in the then "VfL Osnabrück master team" (before and after Slavia Prague), as player-coach. Miloslav Kříž lived in the peace city of Osnabrück during this time. He worked at VfL without an assistant coach or assistant.

National coach men Federal Republic of Germany

From 1968 to 1971 Miloslav Kříž was responsible for the DBB men's national team as a full-time national coach. His assistant coach was Günter Hagedorn , at the time initially the Bundesliga coach of ATV Düsseldorf and since 1969 head coach TuS 04 Leverkusen .

The coach and coach from the ČSSR was signed with the aim of forming a powerful national team for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. In October 1968, the DBB coaching council , headed by DBB sportsman Anton Kartak ( USC Heidelberg ), appointed the fifty-strong "1972 Olympic squad" (" Kartak list "), who regularly trained together in two performance centers ( Heidelberg and Cologne ) , was equipped there with individual objectives and sporting homework. The squad players were also familiarized with the approaches of “mental training”.

The players for the A and B national teams were then appointed from among the players in the Olympic squad in order to give the national players the opportunity to get match practice against the best European teams and against the top players on the European basketball scene. Miloslav Kříž and the DBB coaching council planned to take part in the European basketball championship in Italy in 1969 and the European championship in 1971 in their “own country” as important milestones on the way to the Olympic basketball tournament in Munich . The German national team did not succeed in qualifying for the European championship tournament in Naples in 1969 in Saloniki (for the European championship in 1969 Spain and host Greece qualified within the framework of the FIBA ​​tournament in Saloniki, the national team of the DBB only qualified for twelve years later the 1981 European basketball championship in Czechoslovakia).

For the following two major international tournaments, since the DBB was the host, the hurdles of qualification did not have to be overcome (at the FIBA ​​European Championship in 1971, Miloslav Kříž was no longer responsible as national coach at this tournament, the German national team took place 9, behind Romania and in front of France.). For professional reasons, the national coach Miloslav Kříž did not have the two internationally experienced centers Jörg Krüger and Klaus Weinand available to qualify. They both played for Germany at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Kříž, who had accepted a professional activity in the Federal Republic of Germany in the direct preliminary phase of the Prague Spring , could not continue his work as national trainer of the DBB in 1971 because the authorization to be able to work professionally abroad, a mandatory requirement for in the Federal Republic of Germany to be able to work as a trainer was not renewed by the authorities of the ČSSR. Kříž returned to his family in the ČSSR earlier than planned.

Kříž's successor as national coach was the coach of the then national division basketball team USC Mainz, a very experienced and internationally recognized FIBA ​​referee, former German national player and former "master player" from Heidelberg, Theodor "Torry" Schober. Miloslav Kříž's predecessors were national coaches Kurt Siebenhaar and Yakovos Bilek .

Basketball official in the ČSSR and in the Czech Republic

Miloslav Kříž was President of the Czech Basketball Association and Vice President of the Czechoslovak Basketball Federation from 1973 to 1986 . - In 1990 Kříž was elected president of the Sparta Praha basketball club . In this office he worked until 1993. He was then appointed honorary president of the traditional Prague club.

FIBA projects and functions in FIBA

Functions

Miloslav Kříž was closely associated with the Fédération Internationale de Basketball over a period of forty-four years, from 1956 to 2000, in an active cooperation. He is considered one of the internationally highly recognized and prominent former members of the FIBA ​​management level. Mainly he was active in the following functions:

• 1956 to 1968: Member of the Organizing Committee of the European zone of FIBA
• 1972 to 1976: Member of the FIBA ​​Commission for the European club competitions
• 1973 to 1980: Member of the Organizing Committee of the European zone of FIBA
• 1980 to 1990: Member of the FIBA ​​Central Board and President of the Women's Committee of the FIBA
• 1990 to 1994: Member of the FIBA ​​Commission for the European club competitions
• 1994 to 2000: Technical Commissioner (with 678 games - "A record in the FIBA." )

European Cup For Men's Champion Clubs

The lawyer Kříž is one of the conceptual co-founders of the FIBA European Cup . In 1957, during the “FIBA Permanent Conference for Europe and the Mediterranean Basin”, Kříž was at that time a “Member of the Organizing Committee of the European zone of FIBA”, and afterwards, during the FIBA ​​European Championship in 1957 in Bulgaria, was im top management of the international basketball federation discussed the idea of ​​a cup competition for national champions at European level. FIBA Secretary General R. William Jones appointed a FIBA ​​project commission, of which Raimundo Saporta (Spain) was appointed and of which Miloslav Kříž became a member. In addition to them, Robert Busnel (France), Nikolai Semashko (USSR) and Borislav Stanković (Yugoslavia) were commissioned to develop a concept that proposed the establishment of a competition for the master teams of the FIBA ​​associations at European level. The decisive meeting of this commission took place in December 1957 in Gauting near Munich .

Kříž had submitted a well-founded proposal to FIBA ​​General Secretary R. William Jones, which included a FIBA ​​tournament for the six top performing clubs. This proposal was rejected by Jones to the Commission. Raimundo Saporta then initiated, after renewed intensive discussion and reached consensus in the appointed FIBA ​​project commission, the participation of the national champions of all the then member countries of the FIBA ​​zone Europe. As early as 1958, the first European Cup For Men's Champion Clubs was played, with twenty-two participating clubs. The cup was donated by the French sports daily L'Équipe . In order to keep the financial burden on the clubs low, groups were formed for the first round of the new European Cup competition according to the geographical location. The first European championship game was played on February 22, 1958 between Royal IV CSA Belgium and BBC Etzella Luxembourg (82:43 in the first game and 63:36 in the second leg). Other participants: Jonction BC (Geneva, Switzerland), BK Slovan Orbis (Prague / Czechoslovakia), Union Babenberg (Vienna / Austria), Honved SE (Budapest / Hungary), The Wolves (Amsterdam / Netherlands), BK Akademik (Sofia / Bulgaria), CJS Aleppo (Syria), ASK Olimpia (Ljubljana / Yugoslavia), Fenerbahce SK (Istanbul / Turkey), Panellinios GS (Athens / Greece), CCA Bucarest (Romania), Basket Villeurbanne (France), ASK (Riga / USSR ), HSG Wissenschaft HU (Berlin / East Germany), Pantterit (Helsinki / Finland), CWKS Legia (Warsaw / Poland), Simenthal Olimpia (Milano / Italia), Maccabi (Tel Aviv / Israel), FC Barreirense (Barreiro / Portugal) and Real Madrid (Spain). The first European Cup winner was ASK Riga . The introduction of the FIBA ​​European Cup is seen as one of the most important impulses for European basketball in the second half of the twentieth century - a "success story" with an extraordinarily high degree of effectiveness.

13 years after the end of the Second World War , it was not easy for the clubs and teams to meet the requirements of participating in the new FIBA ​​competition. The possibilities for communication and traveling to the away games were often very limited or almost impossible. The common standards for gaming operations first had to be developed. In the first few years, the sporting organization of the European Cup competitions was hampered by the influence of international politics, mainly due to the East-West conflict or the " Cold War ". For example, the Spanish government, under dictator Franco , prevented Real Madrid from traveling to the USSR for the European Cup match against ASK Riga. For the top European teams, participation in one of the European Cup competitions, despite the handicaps and difficulties that had to be overcome, gave them a wide range of options to significantly improve their income in order to be able to finance the game.

Senior sports editor at ČTK

After his return from the Federal Republic of Germany to Prague, the center of his life at the time, in 1971, Kříž worked for more than fourteen years as the chief sports editor of the Czechoslovak press agency Česká tisková kancelář .

Awards

In June 2002, at the headquarters of the Fédération Internationale de Basketball (FIBA) in Geneva , Miloslav Kříž was awarded the important FIBA ​​award, the “ FIBA Order of Merit ”. He received this award as the forty-eighth personality, along with George E. Killian from the USA and Eugenio Korwin from Italy, in the presence of Jacques Rogge , President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

literature

• " Basketball " - "Official body of the German Basketball Federation" (born 1958 to 1975) - ISSN  0178-9279

Web links

• Miloslav Kříž's biography, with photo . Sparta Praha website. Retrieved December 28, 2010.
• The German Basketball Federation eV (DBB) mourns the loss of its former men's national coach Dr. Miroslav Kriz May 20, 2013.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Zemřel propagator basketbalu Miloslav Kříž. Česká televize website . Retrieved May 21, 2013.
2. ↑ Miloslav Kriz, 89, Passes Away Obituary for the death of Dr. Miloslav Kříž on May 20, 2013. FIBA Europe website . Retrieved May 24, 2013.
3. ^ ^{A b} Club History . Sparta Praha website. Retrieved December 28, 2010.
4. ↑ European Basketball Champions - Czechoslovakia . Website APBR - The Association for Professional Basketball Research. Retrieved December 28, 2010.
5. ^ European Championship for Women 1967 - Czechoslovakia . FIBAeurope website, Final Standings. Retrieved December 28, 2010.
6. ^ Women Basketball World Championship 1967 Prague (TCH). Sports Statistics website - International Competitions Archive. Retrieved December 28, 2010 ( website unavailable. ).
7. ↑ 5th Mundial - Checoslova, April 1967. ( Memento of 28 May 2007 at the Internet Archive ) Website Las Gigantes, Seleccion Argentina de Basquet Femenio. Retrieved December 28, 2010.
8. ↑ Women Basketball European Championship 1962 Mulhouse. Sports Statistics website - International Competitions Archive. Retrieved December 28, 2010 ( website unavailable. ).
9. ↑ Women Basketball European Championship 1966, Sibiu, Cluj (ROM). Sports Statistics website - International Competitions Archive. Retrieved December 28, 2010 ( website unavailable. ).
10. ^ FIBA All Star Games 1964 to 1995 . L'Équipe d'EUROPE de basket, L'historique des matchs. Website Zona131. Retrieved March 16, 2011 ( website unavailable. ).
11. ^ FIBA All Star Games - Games organized by FIBA website Wikipedia. Retrieved December 7, 2010.
12. ↑ Dr.Miloslav Kříž oceněn Řádem FIBA ​​"Za zásluhy o rozvoj světového basketbalu" website BC Sparta - JUDr.Miloslav Kříž. Retrieved April 27, 2012.
13. ↑ Experts decide European Club Basketball's 50 greatest contributors ( Memento of the original from August 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Euroleague Basketball website, February 4, 2008. Retrieved April 27, 2012. 
14. ↑ Basketball / guest players - ten percent. Spiegel Online website, DER SPIEGEL 44/1969, article October 27, 1969. Retrieved December 28, 2010.
15. ^ Men Basketball European Championship Qualification 1969 - Thessaloniki (GRE). Sports Statistics website - International Competitions Archive. Participation of the German national team (DBB). Retrieved December 23, 2010 ( website unavailable. ).
16. ↑ European Basketball Championship 1969 qualification tournament in Thessaloniki. Linguasport website - Sport History and Statistics. Retrieved December 6, 2010. - (Please note the navigation function "Qualifying Stage")
17. ↑ Bankruptcy in basketball - only children can still help Website ZEIT online, article in Die Zeit, 1969 No. 24, Jürgen von Lossow. Retrieved December 6, 2010.
18. ↑ National coach - From 1953 to today. DBB website. Retrieved April 6, 2012.
19. ↑ BC Sparta Prague (basketball) ( Memento of the original from December 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. AllPraha website. Retrieved December 28, 2010. 
20. ^ Women's basketball as a world game. (PDF; 50 kB). LA84 Foundation website. Article Olympic Review No. 161, March 1981 by Dr. Miroslav Kříž, President of the Women's Committee of the FIBA. Retrieved December 28, 2010 ( website unavailable. ).
21. ^ Roots of the Euroleague website Euroleague. Article Vladimir Stankovic, December 11, 2010. Retrieved December 28, 2010.
22. ↑ FIBA Champions Cup 1958 . Linguasport website - Sport History and Statistics. Retrieved December 6, 2010.
23. ^ The European Cup for Men's Champion Clubs - The early Years. Website Fibaeurope. Retrieved December 28, 2010.
24. ↑ FIBA European Champions Cup and Euroleague history . Wikipedia website. Retrieved December 28, 2010.
25. ^ I Copa de Europa 1958. Website Zona131 - Todo el Basket de la Red - Los Inicios de la Copa de Europa. Retrieved December 28, 2010 ( website unavailable. ).
26. ^ Website ČTK - Česká tisková kancelář Retrieved May 25, 2013.