Two of the coach’s jackets that wrote their own basketball history are housed in two Museums of Thessaloniki
It was custom made, hand sewn and not bought from a department store. The jacket has been the trademark of Yiannis Ioannidis, but also his charm.
He chose it with special care because it had to bring victories. He would put it on and take it off countless times during the match depending on the outcome of the score. Sometimes he threw it on the bench or at the referees in protest.
Two of these jackets, which wrote their own basketball history and will continue to chronicle the distinctions and successes of the “blonde” coach, who passed away at the age of 78, are housed in two Museums in Thessaloniki: the Basketball Museum of Ari and the Basketball Museum of HANTH.
They are in glass cases that will remind visitors who Yiannis Ioannidis was. His strong personality, his dedication to basketball, his passion for the orange ball and of course his prejudices.
The checkered jacket of the absolutely dominant Mars and the atopima of Geneva!
In the 80s, Aris has now become the absolute ruler in Greece, winning consecutive championships, but also cups, while his ambitions go beyond the Greek borders. Giannis Ioannidis, as the “maestro” of the yellow and black, had to manage many first “violins”, such as Nikos Galis, Panagiotis Giannakis, Lefteris Soubotics and the other guys.
Throughout this process, the “blonde” stood out for something else. For the checkered jacket he wore in all the matches.
He was cautious and did not take it out on himself, since he believed it was a good luck charm. This jacket, trademark of Yiannis Ioannidis, from the period 1987 – 1989, is today in one of the showcases of the Aris Basketball Museum, in Alexandrio Melathros. He donated it himself to remind of the “golden era” and as it is said, when the coach visited the place some time later, he “looked at it for a while speechless”.
the tour of the “blonde” in the Museum was undertaken by Haris Papageorgiou, current president of KAE Aris, initially teammate of Yiannis Ioannidis and later his player. A joint journey of the two men on the parquet, the playing fields and the stands for five decades, with many victories, difficult moments and countless stories.
It is normal for a man so close to Yiannis Ioannidis to know his tricks. And especially, her his “aversion” to black cats. “We knew the precautions and we teased him constantly. As teammates, in the 70s, we used to go for a walk near the hotel where the delegation was staying, just before the match. If we saw any black cats on the street, he knew that his day would go badly and we would have a bad result,” recounts Mr. Papageorgiou.
however, the scene that everyone will remember took place in Geneva, the first year that Aris made it to the final four. Management people traveled to the Swiss city to find accommodation for the expedition. And they did it without paying due attention, since they booked rooms in a hotel called “Black Cat”.
“When the mission got off the bus, the first thing that Yannis Ioannidis saw was a black cat. Can you imagine what was heard from the explosive Ioannidis to the advisors who closed the hotel” the current president of KAE added to the story.
The jacket he gave to HANTH on the night of the 2015 elections and the … black cats
Of course, Giannis Ioannidis didn’t have just one jacket! How could he, after all, with so many years of coaching career and successes in Greece and Europe? The charm sometimes broke and had to be changed…
Another jacket of his can be found in the Basketball Museum of HANTH, which fans of the sport have the opportunity to see up close and beyond. Is from the last jackets he wore as Olympiakos coach, it is hand sewn and not bought and he gave it to himself with great pleasure. After all, he had declared about the open field of CHANTH, where many shot their first shots as players, that it is “the citadel of Greek basketball”.
He donated this jacket on the night of the national elections in 2015. Giannis Ioannidis had not been a candidate for parliament at the time, but he was in Thessaloniki. He wore this jacket in the games with Olympiakos and he called his close partner and assistant coach on the bench for many years, Giorgis Bousvaros, to hand it over to him so that it can be put in a museum display case.
“Many people thought they knew Ioannidis, but very few knew him,” added Mr. Bousvaros, speaking to APE-MPE. “Few knew him both as a personality and as a coach. Giannis was a man who always wanted to win. “Every time we got together at Elysse and he said ‘one last cigarette’, we knew we were going to have a wild night,” he said.
During training at the Palais de Sport, if he rang the “red phone” on the court (since mobile phones had not appeared at that time), he would get angry and throw it away. “He thought he was being watched for training,” says Mr Bousvaros. After all, he allowed only the same 22 people to enter the playing field during training, while he forbade everyone else to enter.
Of course, the …black cats were still chasing him. And the story that Mr. Bousvaros remembers is typical, when in a match between Aris in Patras, Giannis Ioannidis forced the entire mission coach to reverse, along with all the other cars following, and change course after a black cat had crossed the road. “We almost lost the match, we were going to zero, but who could stop Ioannidis?”, said his former assistant characteristically, with a dose of nostalgia.
Source: Skai
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