The great coach Giannis Ioannidis breathed his last at the age of 78. He was a minister and MP of the New Democracy. Panhellenic emotion for the “Blonde” of Greek basketball.
The great Greek basketball coach Giannis Ioannidis died at the age of 78.
The great coach, who associated his name with the great successes of Aris and Olympiacos in the 80s and 90s, breathed his last after battle with health problems that have plagued him in recent years.
From 2004 to 2015 he was a Member of Parliament in Electoral District 1 of Thessaloniki with New Democracy and after the 2007 elections he was appointed to the position of Deputy Minister of Culture.
Among others, he was a member of the Standing Committee on Educational Affairs, the Special Standing Committee on Research and Technology, the Sub-Committee on the Monitoring of Sports Matters, the Standing Committee on Administration, Public Order & of Justice, the Special Standing Committee on Equality and Human Rights, the Inter-Party Committee for the Formation of an Institutional Framework for Guarantees of Transparency in Sports, as well as the Constitution Revision Committee.
Yiannis Ioannidis EUROKINISSI GIORGOS KONTARINIS
Ioannidis as a player
Ioannidis was born in Thessaloniki on February 26, 1945 and was involved in basketball from a young age, reaching the point of playing in the first team of Aris in 1960.
His career as a player lasted 18 years, but from an early age he had shown his inclination towards coaching.
From his studies at the agricultural school he had shown his appeal to the organization of teams and even became the coach of Ergotelis in 1977, without having hang up his shoes yet.
Yiannis Ioannidis in a Panhellenic match against Aris in the 1963-64 season INTIME SPORTS
The legendary coach
Giannis Ioannidis, who marked the decades of the 80s and 90s, was the “architect” of both “emperor” Aris and Olympiakos, winning a total of 12 championships and 6 cups of Greece. p>
He became the first coach to send a Greek team to the Final-4, but also the final of the European Championship, stopping three times in the “4” and losing as many other finals .
Ioannidis led Aris with Nikos Galis, Panagiotis Giannakis and their company to the final stage three years in a row, after every week he captivated the Greek audience on their televisions and there he did not have peace, but also luck on his side, to climb to the top of the podium.
Yiannis Ioannidis EUROKINISSI
More specifically, Aris remained his professional home for one season, from 1978 to 1979, followed by two years in Larissa. In 1980 he took charge of the Greek National Team and in 1982 began the second and most successful term of his career on the “yellow” bench.
Led by Nikos Galis and with Panagiotis Giannakis joining the roster shortly after, the team built by Ioannidis changed basketball as we knew it in Greece until then.
Under his guidance Aris won the championships in 1979, 1983 and five in a row from 1985 to 1990, accompanied by unbroken records, undefeated streaks and three consecutive Final Fours.
In 1991 Olympiacos made the checkmate move and brought him down from Thessaloniki, with Ioannidis building a second basketball dynasty. Four championships in a row from 1993 to 1996, two Champions Cup finals, until he left in 1996 for AEK.
In Union he managed to reach another Euroleague final, followed by a return to Olympiakos for one season and his last stint as a coach, with the Greek National Team in 2002-2003, guiding them to Eurobasket 2003.
Life in politics
In 2004, he announced his retirement from basketball and entered the parliamentary elections with New Democracy. He was elected Member of Parliament, as in the following elections, in 2007, when he took over as Deputy Minister of Sports, until October 2009.
In the new coalition government of ND, PASOK and DIMAR that was formed after the elections of the 17th In June 2012, he was appointed again to the position of Deputy Minister of Sports, until June 2013.
He has been awarded many awards, from the University of Thessaloniki, from higher educational institutions of the country, from legal and natural persons and a number of other bodies. . Among his distinctions, a prominent place is his award from the University of Athens which bears the title HOMO HELLENICUS.
This honorary title is awarded to personalities from all over the world who have served the Values with their work and life of Hellenism, as well as high political figures and heads of state, such as Tassos Papadopoulos, Vladimir Putin and Nicolas Sarkozy.
source: news 24/7
