By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Some coaches are drawn to coaching at a young age and rise through the ranks over many years. Others use productive playing careers as a springboard to recycle their knowledge and experience to become elite coaches. Olympiacos head coach Ioannis Sfairopoulos belongs to the former group, as he started his coaching career in his late teens.
”I started coaching at age 19 and stopped playing two years later. I overlapped as a player and coach for two years, but when I discovered how much I loved coaching, I stopped playing. First of all, I knew that I was not a great player. I was a hard worker and started to play when I was 12 years old.
I understood that I wasn’t good enough to play at a high level. I played seriously for a couple of years in the Greek second division, but after that, when I started to coach, I was so happy coaching kids that I realized that was what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to play anymore – and anyway, I didn’t have a great future as a player”.
You can read the rest of Greek coach’s blog in Euroleague.net.