Dusan Duda Ivkovic retires

Dusan Ivkovic (Photo: YouTube/screenshot)

- The coaching job means having to bring important and often very hard decision. But, if one feels passion for it at the same time, the challenges are easy to bear, no matter how demanding they might be. This is why I’ve never felt stressed out, but extremely passionate instead, in all these decades. My last decision as a coach, the decision to retire, is logical, rational and equally as hard as many others I have had to make in the course of my career – wrote Ivkovic in the statement sent to Tanjug.

Nevertheless, as he said, he has to admit that this decision was much more emotionally charged than all the past ones.

- Basketball and the coaching profession were not part of my life, they were my life. It was a relationship of constant mutual giving. I have given myself to basketball, and it has shaped my life in the most beautiful way possible. This is why, when I look behind now, I wish to thank my colleagues above all, especially the players, for the respect, trust and inspiration they’ve shown.

The legendary Duda stated that saying goodbye to coaching doesn’t mean saying goodbye to basketball.

- I can’t, won’t and never will say goodbye to basketball. It’s only that the way in which it’s a part of my life will change. I plan to officially say goodbye to coaching at a big humanitarian match, which will be organized next summer and will bring together numerous coaches and players I’ve worked with throughout my career.

Dusan Ivkovic is 72. He has played basketball in Radnicki from Crveni Krst, Belgrade, and as a coach, he has worked in Partizan, Aris, Radnicki, Sibenka, Vojvodina, PAOK, Panionios, Olympiacos, AEK, CSKA Moscow, Dynamo Moscow and, finally, in Efes.

Ivkovic has also been the head coach of Yugoslav and Serbian national teams.

He has won 20 trophies in club basketball, among which are two Euroleague trophies with Olypiacos. As the head coach of Yugoslavia and Serbia, he won the Olympic silver medal in Seul in 1988, the world championship in Argentina in 1990, three EuroBasket gold medals (1989, 1991, 1995) and two silver medals (1999, 2009). As a team adviser and assistant, he won the Olympic silver medal in Atlanta in 1996, the World Championship gold medal in 1998, the bronze medal in 1986, the EuroBasket gold medal in 1997 and the bronze medal in 1987.