How Krešo Ćosić rejected the NBA and became a legend: ‘Money, fame and vanity must mean nothing to me’

He didn’t play basketball, he played and enjoyed the game. He is certainly one of the greats of Croatian basketball Krešimir Ćosića good-natured ‘giant’ who never made his mark in the NBA league, but brought from the USA to Croatia, in addition to new basketball knowledge, he also brought new religious knowledge with which he laid the foundations of the Church of the Latter-day Saints in these areas. He spread his knowledge for only 47 years when he died in the USA after a short and difficult battle with lymphoma cancer.

– I enjoy the game more than trying to make life difficult for my opponent, so I play more freely than with some unnecessary malice. I’m glad when the opponent plays well. I want to win, but I’m not ready to use all means, and I don’t understand defeat as tragic. I don’t play to hurt anyone, but there are often rougher moments. It’s like this: you have to play or leave basketball. For me, when I go out on the field, my worries stop: that’s when I play – said Krešo Ćosić for Start.

Still a bald beard pulled from Zadar to the USA

And it all started back in 1948. Krešimir Ćosić He was born in Zagreb on November 26 of that year. However, he took his first basketball steps in Zadar, where he was noticed as a fourteen-year-old. Two years later, he made his debut for the senior team of KK Zadar. then they saw how that boy had “that something”. In his first season, he won the championship with Zadar, and he did the same in 1967 and 1968.

In those years, he also played for the national team of Yugoslavia. The practically beardless nineteen-year-old took home two silver medals – in 1967 at the World Championships in Montevideo and a year later at the Olympic Games in Mexico City. At that time he was also in a kind of European national team, and it was a springboard for him to take a step further.

He decided to show his virtuosity on the field outside of Europe as well. In 1969 he went to America. All this happened through the help of the Finn Velkk Vainio, at whose suggestion Krešo went to play and study at Brigham Young University. He was going to the USA, but he didn’t know English. However, this did not bother a person of such charisma and cheerful spirit because he knew how to communicate without words.

Photo: Zadarski list

– Considering the fact that he corresponded with BYU through Kapičić before his arrival, they thought that someone who spoke English perfectly would arrive, and he who didn’t know more than “hello” and “goodbye”. He was quite surprised when he found out that the consumption of even the smallest amounts of tobacco and alcohol are strictly prohibited – said his daughter Ana for Veernji list.

From his first contact with the Mormons, he followed their path

He came to Provo in the American state of Utah and from Catholic Croatia and communist Yugoslavia he arrived in an unknown area. He did not know the language, but he was familiar with the local religion, which further directed his career.

– Our first meeting was at a family dinner, which Mormons have every Monday. The whole family is together, we talk, pray, play, č read… That’s how it was that evening too. Krešo was sitting on the sofa, and his knees were at the level of his head. My husbandž Truman asked him how he converted. He didn’t know much English, so he said: ‘I read the Book of Mormon, it’s true and I was baptized’ – said Ann Madsen, the woman responsible for Kreša’s conversion.

The university was Mormon, so drinking and smoking were not allowed there. This surprised Osoi at first, but he soon got used to his new life. He continued to win awards with the Yugoslav national team, but also with the University for which he played. In the first season, he averaged 17.4 points and 12.6 assists, that is, a double-double average. In his second year, he averaged 15.1 points and 12.6 assists per game, and then he led his team to the WAC (Western Athletic Conference) championship. In the third season, he scored an average of 22.3 points and had 12.8 rebounds.

They also won the championship that year, and Ćosić was the first non-American named to the United Press International All-American team.

Photo: Wikipedia

The Lakers and Blazers are calling, but the heart says Zadar

Today, many basketball players want to go to the NBA draft as soon as possible, and Kreša did not rush to join the world’s strongest basketball league. After three masterful seasons, he still went to the Draft, where he was chosen as the first pick of the tenth round by the Portland Trailblazers, for whom he never played.

– If I had accepted it, I would have become the first foreigner to play in the NBA, but since I was not interested in professional basketball, I decided to stay at the university and finish studying economics. Imagine, I sign a contract, buy a ranč, get injured, earn money, have children John and Julietta… and if they’re Mormon, then I’d have seven to 13… and then I have to buy more. in the house and move to the top of some mountain – Krešimir Ćosić said then.

And the following year, he did not dare to go to the NBA because his heart was calling to Zadar, and the LA Lakers were interested.

– I responded to all offers from professionals in the same way: I refused them all. There was no way I could accept professionalization in which only money would govern my life and being. I didn’t want to completely submit to basketball and be just a basketball player. It was clear to me that life has much wider, deeper and higher dimensions than the game, and that the essence of the game is in the real, not in the bought competition. So early on I decided that money, fame and vanity should mean nothing to me. I play, I live and I will succeed in that.

Photo: Dnevni Avaz/PrivatniAlbum/Facebook

He never ran after money and the road took him back to Zadar. There, some did not accept him well because of the novelty he brought with him. At one time, the situation with Ćosić was explained by his teammateč Giuseppe Gjergja.

– There was a big problem because of Ćosić when it was discovered what kind of contents he had returned from America. He and his preaching were talked about in all possible places, from local communities, committees, institutes, all possible institutions and party cells to veterans of the Second World War. The Ćosića was never taken into custody, he had too much charisma, but they endlessly anathematized him. He was very brutally expelled from Zadar with accusations that he was incompetent and a thief, that he had stolen 800,000 marks. He went to Olimpija in Ljubljana under the auspices of one of the strongest men in Yugoslavia, Stanet Dolanc, who took him under his protection – said Giuseppe.

From 1973 to 1976, he was in Zadar, and then he went to play for the Slovenian Olympia. Although he was ‘under fire’, Ćosić brought two more championships to Zadar and was the club’s first violin in the golden years of Zadar basketball. At that time, the club used to have 25 victories in a row.

But even going to Olimpija did not prevent him from playing for Zadar. As a player coach in a Slovenian club, he knew how to ask for the game to be postponed so that he could get to Zadar and play a game for his home club. After that he moved to Italy’s Sinudyne as a gameč. He played there for two years and won two championships.

Everything ended in Zagreb

He returned to Croatia again and played for Cibona, with whom he managed to win the domestic championship and the Cup in 1982, as well as the European Cup Winners’ Cup against Real. He had to play in the Cibona jersey against Zadar. At first, the audience did not accept it well, but after a few moments on the dance floor, the magical Krešo was simply not a person they could scold anymore. they just applauded him.

Upon his arrival in Cibona, he reflected on his previous career.

– I don’t know if it is possible to talk about a boy’s player at the age of 32, but I have always accepted basketball that way. There were occasions when I could be paid very well, and I played almost without a cent. I always thought that playingč he has a choice whether he will get everything he can from a club or try to get everything he can. The most important thing for me is to have fun and win. Everything else, when it comes…

– I always lost for a while. If any of my colleagues had signed my contracts, they would have received more than me for a year or two, but they would not have lasted as long as I did – he told Start.

Zadar: Anniversary of the death of the basketball great Krešimir ?osi? |

Photo: Zeljko Mrsic/PIXSELL

After that, he became the coach of the Yugoslav national team, with which he won silver at the European Championships in Spain in 1986, and won the same silver at the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988. After his coaching career, he also devoted himself to diplomacy and worked as a minister advisor at the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Washington.

The whole time he was with the religion that he wanted to present in the Republic of Croatia. With the help of Catholic priest translated the Book of Mormon, and we can still read it today. But his life was suddenly cut short. He was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer, from which he died on May 25, 1995 in Baltimore. He was buried on Mirogoj under the arcades.

After his death, he was included in the Hall of Fame as the third non-American to do so, and since 1998 the Croatian Cup has been named after him, while since 2008 the new hall in Višnjik has also been named after him. He was chosen among the 50 best basketball players of all time as well as among the 50 people who contributed to the development of the Euroleague.

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