On May 2nd, the awarding ceremony of Nikos Galis as an honorary doctorate of the Department of Physical Education and Sports Science of the AUTH will take place, which was supposed to take place on March 3rd but was postponed due to the national mourning for the Tempe tragedy.

The announcement ceremony, in which Nikos Galis is honored for his outstanding contribution to sports and culture, as well as for the valuable services he offered to society, will take place in the AUTH ceremony hall.

The successes he achieved with his teams and the Greek National Team, had a significant social impact since people of all ages, but especially young people and children, having him as a role model, turned to sports, loved basketball and adopted the sports lifestyle.

He managed, in a period when sport was mainly amateur, to stand out, highlighting professional attitudes and standards, worthy of admiration and recognition. He also achieved what few athletes in his category could: to be universally recognized and loved, even by opponents, to be universally glorified and to leave a significant legacy to a people.

“The modest and humble behavior of such a prominent man to this day is an example to be imitated and defines the difference between the temporal and the timeless. Nikos Galis, at every opportunity, shows his socially responsible attitude towards the daily problems of society and the city where he lives and continues to offer whenever he is asked”, highlights the AUTH in a statement.

The path to the top

Nikos Galis was born on July 23, 1957 in New Jersey, USA. The son of Greek immigrants, he grew up and studied at Seaton Hall University (Seaton Hall University, NJ) in the USA. He is considered one of the leading Greek athletes of the modern era and an undisputed reformer of basketball and Greek sports in general.

His consistently high athletic performance was the result of a combination of his individual characteristics and his belief in scientific support to achieve his goals. Nikos Galis, due to his perfectionism and professionalism, adopted scientific practices in a unique way, at a time when myths surrounding sports and training flourished.

His athletic training became a reference of good practice described by the most advanced theories of athletic training in the scientific literature. He used different trajectories on the ball according to the principles of biomechanics and by exploiting his biokinetic, physical characteristics, he overcame the obstacle of taller opponents he faced in matches. He developed his motor control to aim perfectly even in critical moments, as well as in conditions of high fatigue. He maintained the appropriate psychological state, composure, level of psychological arousal and level of self-concentration, regardless of the criticality of the moment and the match. When his fellow athletes finished training, Nikos Galis continued, even using resistance exercises.

In the 80s, Nikos Galis, realizing the importance of the physical and psychological state, as well as the technical – tactical, created with calculated fidelity a versatile model athlete. His career is marked by numerous individual and team titles and records, many of which still stand today.

Is first scorer in the history of the Greek Championship, as well as in all European club competitions of all time.

He has been recognized as the greatest European scorer of all time by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA).

In 2007 he became the first Greek basketball player to join the Hall of Fame of FIBA ​​and in 2017 to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in the USA, thus entering the “pantheon” of world basketball.