In the article we will talk about Ivan Edeshko. This is a fairly well-known person who began his career as a basketball player, and then tried himself as a coach. We will consider the career path of this person, and also learn how he managed to achieve wide fame and become one of the most popular basketball players in the USSR.
Family of Ivan Edeshko
Our hero was born in March 1945 in a small village in the Grodno region. His father Ivan Alexandrovich died in 1997, and his mother Anna Vikentieva - in 1988. In adulthood, he had a wife Larisa Andreevna, who studied at Moscow State University and worked as a teacher. A daughter Natalia Ivanovna appeared in a pair in 1970, who became a master of sports, a professional tennis player and later worked at CSKA. But also Ivan Edeshko also has grandchildren Ivan and Artem.
Titles
Ivan Edeshko - Honored Master of Sports of the USSR, Honored Coach, Olympic champion, two-time European champion, world champion, European champion, eight-time champion of the Soviet Union, Russian champion, winner of the sports and athletics of the peoples of the USSR, multiple champion of Lebanon.
Career
Ivan Edeshko loved basketball, his first coach was Yakov Fruman. The young man graduated from the sports and pedagogical faculty at the Belarusian State University of Physical Education. It happened in 1970. It is known that he played for such basketball clubs as Spartak (Minsk), RTI (Minsk), and CSK basketball club (Moscow).
He got into the history of not only domestic but also world basketball because he made the so-called “golden pass” to Alexander Belov. This is one of the most striking episodes of the biography of Ivan Edeshko.
Belov was also a Soviet basketball player and master of sports. He was the main in the Leningrad team “Spartak”. So, the hero of our article made this pass just 3 seconds before the end of the final match at the Munich Olympics in 1972. The situation at the match was rather tense and difficult, the Soviet basketball players managed to score the ball several times, but they experienced difficulties due to problems taking into account the time and constant stops of the game. However, they managed to beat the Americans with a score of 51:50.
Read more about the Golden Pass
Ivan Ivanovich Edeshko himself repeated many times that it was the game that made him popular in 1972. At the same time, he told much later that before the Olympic Games, active political processing took place. The team left for Germany, where for some time it was born and formed, but then fascism was stopped.
Ivan knew that his team was going to win. The entire basketball team had a specific task to take second place. The fact is that they could not count on more, because it was almost impossible. When the final match began, the team went to the site with the desire to be the first, but at the same time with a sense of accomplishment. Few dreamed of victory, because before that the American team was invincible. And 3 seconds before the end of the match, defender Ivan Edeshko made an incredible pass through the entire area to Alexander Belov, who threw the ball into the opponent’s basket. Thus, the national team of the Soviet Union became the full Olympic champion. In order to understand the scale of what Ivan did, it is necessary to add that at the Olympic Games the basketball court was 2 meters longer than the standard one, which greatly complicated any maneuver.
Even today, when it comes to that game in 1972, everyone remembers Ivan and Belov. The most interesting thing is that Edeshko does not really like to recall that incident, although he was involved in it. He said that the complexity of the maneuver was not so much in technical execution, but in the psychological burden that developed in that particular situation. He said that catching the ball was much more difficult than giving a pass. Therefore, the merit of the victory was completely attributed to Alexander Belov.
Ivan believes that more attention should be paid specifically to Belov, who in the final game brought his team 20 points, which amounted to almost half of all points at that time. But he believes that this fact has been undeservedly faded into the background. In the interview, he reasoned a lot that it was precisely these three seconds that made him popular, but in the eyes of fans his other achievements and his personality as an athlete overshadowed. He also said that even if there weren’t these three seconds that glorified him, he would still make people talk about himself.
Yesoshko at the Championship was considered the leader in assists. For three years he got into the European team, and a talented coach Alexander Gomelsky said that Edeshko can be considered a basketball Bobrov. He even compared him to Magic Johnson, who was an NBA legend.
Athlete uniqueness
Basketball player Ivan Edeshko was really unique. His height was 195 cm, and even the center ones could envy such physical data. Ivan also owned dribbling and saw the site as Magic at one time. He was acting as a point guard. Of course, in modern basketball, such a combination is the norm, but in 1970 the appearance of a playmaker, who was superior to many center ones in growth, was an event. Ivan was considered the most technical player in the entire team. It was he who was the first among worthy basketball players to work with four balls against the wall, like a professional juggler.
How did he start?
Ivan was from a working-class family. As a child, he tried various sports to find himself. Once I was very interested in boxing, I practiced a lot, until, by chance, I met with a children's coach Anatoly Martsinkevich. Togo was attracted by the growth of the boy. The man was in love with basketball, and with this love he infected a fourteen-year-old boy. He said many times that he was very lucky with a mentor who taught him how to handle the ball and managed to instill a love of basketball for the rest of his life. And although we talked about the fact that the teenager was training with Jacob Fruman, it was Anatoly Martsinkevich who initially invested in this sport.
In the hall, the boy spent almost half a day. Over 3 years, he grew by almost 15 cm, thus overtaking his two brothers. A young guy who knew how to play a productive game was immediately noticed in Minsk. In 1963, Vyacheslav Kudryashov invited him to the best team, where a young man in a very short time became one of the leaders. But Vyacheslav led the Spartak basketball team, which was later called RTI.
After Kudryashov, the coach of the team was Ivan Panin. He very much influenced the fate of Ivan, because he saw in him a talented player in the back line. Sports achievements of Ivan Edeshko are largely based on the fact that at one time the trainers noted his strengths and developed them. With his growth, the hero of our article could be an excellent striker, despite the fact that he knew how to get into the ring from any distance. He loved to think over attacks and was famous for his ability to give hidden unusual programs. Such a player was needed by the Soviet Union team .
In 1970, he graduated from the Belarusian State Institute of Physical Culture with a degree in trainer and teacher. In the early 1970s, a competitor to the Spartak Leningrad team finally emerged, led by innovative coach Vladimir Kondrashin. When he was a player, he had already begun working with young people in order to create a unique team that would compete on an equal footing with an army club, which in fact was the USSR national team. Until the end of his life, Ivan had a very warm relationship with this person.
Already when he became a professional, entered the coaching workshop, he still accepted rather harsh criticism, while demonstrating humility and obedience. It was Vladimir Kondrashin that Ivan was able to prove himself in the student team. Perhaps this is exactly what influenced the coach of the basketball club CSKA (Moscow) Alexander Gomelsky, who invited Ivan to the team. Indeed, to stay in the previous team did not make sense, because it did not aspire to high achievements, so participation in the Union Championship was pointless. Performance in the strongest team of the country could promise a wonderful career. However, at that time, his decision was unlikely to have any serious consequences, because recruitment to the team was carried out according to a simple scheme. There is a draft in the army, and you already have coach Alexander Gomelsky. However, the point guard in basketball did not have to complain about his fate. In the ranks of the CSK team, he won almost everything that he could and won everything that was possible. He devoted many years of his life to this team, fully devoting himself to work.
However, in the Gomelsky army club he had to change. If in the Minsk team he could improvise and allow himself something, then in the capital's team such actions were immediately stopped. It was necessary to clearly carry out the installation of the coach. Gomelsky very strictly forbade any risky actions on the site to which Ivan was so inclined. Many decades later, Gomelsky said that perhaps he had forbidden Ivan to do any maneuvers in vain, because the audience was delighted if he managed to do something unusual. Ivan himself in this situation said that he was offended, because he could not appear 100%. Nevertheless, he was well aware that each coach has his own system, which must be obeyed or left the team. From 1978 to 1981 he played for BC CSK (Kiev). Ivan Edeshko showed himself very well and was noted by the coaches.
Coaching career
In 1982, Gomelsky again played an important role in the fate of Ivan. He invited him to be an assistant coach in the national team at the World Cup in Colombia. For Ivan, who was just starting to try himself as a coach, this was a good start. After another 5 years, Gomelsky again resorted to help Edeshko. Then the team of the Soviet Union took silver from Athens.
But if you strictly observe the dates, it must be said that Ivan’s coaching career began in 1980, when he coached the national junior team and the USSR youth team. In 1984, he left for Africa to work under a contract, where he coached the military and national teams at the same time. To such a solution he was erected by material problems.
From 1987 to 1990 He worked as a coach of the national team of the Soviet Union and the team of CSKA. He did not stay in this position for long, but all the same, the success of the army club in 1990 is undoubtedly the merit of Ivan.
CSKA won the first Russian championship in 1992 under the leadership of Ivan. His assistant at that time was Stanislav Eremin, whose career would hardly have developed so rapidly if Ivan had not ceded to him the place of head of the team. Ivan Edeshko himself said that he left the team, because after winning the first season the club was going through rather difficult times. At that time, the team had very little money, there were practically no sponsors. Many players went to work abroad. He saw that Stas was full of energy to fight this and was very enthusiastic, while Ivan could not fight it. He realized that Stas would act as head coach better.
Lebanon
In 1993, a man leaves to work under a contract in Lebanon, where he is the head coach of the Sporting club. He said that this work brought a lot of pleasant moments. He led the club for three years with interruptions, during which time Sporting was the permanent champion of the country. Despite the fact that Ivan Edeshko had all the conditions in Lebanon and received a very good salary, he decided to return to Russia. He himself said that the main reason for this was that he did not want to leave Russian basketball for a long time. It was important that he was known, remembered and respected at home. In 1996, he returned to CSKA, where he worked as the second coach with Stas Yeremin.
Further way
In 2000, Ivan was the head coach of the Shakhtar Irkutsk basketball team. However, after 2 years, due to financial difficulties, the team broke up. After that, the man continued to work as a coach, and in the fall of 2004 returned to Lebanon again to work with the national team. In 2006, the Sport Express newspaper made up the top 5 best basketball coaches, which included Ivan Edeshko.
Ivan Edeshko: awards
At the beginning of the article we listed all the achievements of Ivan, but it should also be noted that he is the holder of the Order of Honor, the Order of the Badge of Honor, and the medal For Labor Valor.
Memory
In cinema, the hero of our article was not forgotten. In 2017, the film "Upward Movement" was released. Ivan Edeshko was played by Kuzma Saprykin. The film was about the victory of the team at the 1972 Olympic Games.
Summing up, we note that today we talked about the life and career of a very unusual and talented basketball player. As you can see, he owes his success not only to perfect technical performance, but also to the fact that he always developed his strong qualities, was not afraid to show character on the site, was able to position himself. From a young age he was noticed and began to develop, because they saw in him a promising basketball player. He became such, famous for his “golden pass”. At the same time, the man proved himself to be a trainer.