Greece’s most successful basketball coach Yiannis Ioannidis died Wednesday aged 78, officials said.
Nicknamed “the blonde”, the famously superstitious, chain-smoking and short-tempered Ioannidis tallied 418 victories in under 500 games in a storied two-decade career coaching Aris Thessaloniki, Olympiacos and AEK Athens, the Greek basketball association said.
He was the youngest coach at 34 to win a Greek championship in 1979, the association said. He won 12 championships overall and twice coached the Greek national team.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in a statement called Ioannidis “a legend”, and was among accolades from other senior politicians.
At Aris, Ioannidis rattled off seven straight titles with American-born Greek basketball superstar Nick Galis from 1985 to 1991, and reached three successive EuroLeague semi-finals.
Galis on Wednesday called his former coach a “magnificent teacher”.
Moving to Olympiacos, he won another four championships and twice guided the team to the EuroLeague final. He then led AEK Athens to a European final.
After retiring from active sports, Ioannidis was elected to parliament in 2004 with the conservative New Democracy party and twice served as junior minister for sport.
He is survived by his wife and daughter.
Source: AFP
