By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Former player Anton Gavel who was already coaching in lower ranks, has been named the new head coach of Ratiopharm Ulm.
Per EuroLeague: Ratiopharm Ulm has a new head of bench after agreeing to terms with Anton Gavel on a two-year contract, the club announced on Saturday.
Gavel, 37, is former player with a vast experience in the 7DAYS EuroCup and Turkish Airlines EuroLeague. A native of Slovakia, he has spent the last three years with Ulm as the coach in its Orange Academy, guiding teams in the German third division, German junior league, as well as the Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament. Gavel now takes a role of a head coach on professional level for the first time.
“It’s a special challenge for me”, Gavel said. “There is responsibility on both sides. Above all because ratiopharm Ulm once again showed the courage to take risks by choosing me as a young coach.”
On the bench, Gavel replaces Jaka Lakovic who guided Ulm the past three seasons, and who also got his first head-coaching opportunity with the club.
“Anton embodies like no other that you can get to the top with down-to-earth, hard work”, said Thorsten Leibenath, Ulm’s sporting director. “His training methods are state-of-the-art, He knows how to push his players without losing sight of his empathetic approach. He fully identifies with the club and the OrangeCampus philosophy, a philosophy of development, improvement, the next step. So it quickly became clear to us that Anton would be our first point of contact for Lakovic’s successor.”
Gavel had a long playing career that started in 2001 with Karlsruhe and ended in 2018 with FC Bayern Munich. He had 70 appearances in the EuroLeague and 80 in the EuroCup over a 10-year period between 2008 and 2018. He is now set to make his head coaching debut in the EuroCup with Ulm.