I hoped, I expected, I wished and prayed that death would stop and I wouldn’t have to write another obituary any time soon, but where is such happiness?

Gerasimos Bozikis is gone and with him I feel like burying my TV prototype!

“Grego” (ie the Greek), as the Brazilians called him, I met for the first time at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.^ης July 1986 at the “PalaciodelosDeportes” in Zaragoza …

I remember the date clearly because it was the eve of the start of the (maiden for the national) World Cup and we were at the stadium with the late Filippa Syrigos to follow the training sessions of the Group A teams. ..

We’ve got Oscar Schmidt shooting and throwing before… he’s shoving his mother out of hell, we’re wondering if Fanis Christodoulou can hold him after five days and suddenly we see a stranger in the Brazil national shirt walking towards us and looking up at us To be addressed in Greek and in a very friendly style…

“What’s up Patriots? How are you? What is happening in Greece?“.

We were left with our mouths open and the next click we were already in love, in fact the next day I gave the first TV interview of my life with him in the hotel “Melia”!

Since then, Gerasimos Bozikis has entered our lives forever with all his qualities: as President of the Brazilian Basketball Federation, as a fan, as a compatriot, as a good friend and so on…

Sporting and Botafogo

Bozikis was born in Patissia in 1943 and played basketball for the first time in 24^the elementary school and then to Sporting while the family emigrated to Rio de Janeiro in 1958.

There, Bozikis continued his career, first in Kizuka and then in Botafogo, while simultaneously studying economics and then opening his own air conditioning company alongside various professional activities.

“I had a good shot and for that, despite being tall for the data at the time (1.91), I played three“He had told me in that interview where he told me the whole story of his life…

“I stopped playing at Botafogo at the age of 35 and because I loved sports I decided to take over the administration and was soon elected President of the Rio Basketball Federation.“.

We … gave him an appointment for 2016

In 1997, Bozikis took charge of the Brazilian (central) federation and eleven years later returned to Greece as the leader of the national team that took part in the pre-Olympic tournament that was held in OAKA.

Brazil didn’t qualify then, but we didn’t qualify in 2016 when they were waiting for us in Rio to return our hospitality and make us feel at home…

Why did he never return to Greece? “My father died a few years after we emigrated and I had to stay there to continue his work. But I often come here for basketball, but also to see our relatives“.

“Men, No Names”

From Bozikis I heard (2008 in Athens) a Brazilian expression that is really very philosophical: “It’s the men that count, not the names“, that is, it doesn’t matter what they call you, but who you are and what you can do …

A conversation whose meaning is the (Cretan) song of Vassilis Skoulas that says: “the man makes the generation and not the generation the man, as if the goat is strong, the mantra does not constrain it“!

Gerasimos left two daughters, but they betrayed him and decided instead of basketball for volleyball, which is extremely popular in Brazil.

In the 35 years that have passed since we first met, this handsome (like) Greek, as Nikos Eggonopoulos used to say when referring to Simon Bolivar, made us feel like our own bosses…

He was our man anyway, but he was even more at the mercy of basketball…

This very warm relationship was unexpectedly tested on August 23, 2006 in Saitama after Anderson Varezao’s brutal beating of Nikos Zisis…

Gerasimos then felt the need to apologize on behalf of the Brazilian center, which personally apologized to its victim after six years: on June 28, 2012, after the Greece-Brazil friendly in Sao Carlos, on the way to Caracas, where the pre-Olympics tournament followed.

After the end of the game, in which the Greek team prevailed 78-71, Varezao Zisis approached and everything else is now history: a history that Gerasimos Bozikis carried in himself until the moment of apology and fortunately not like a mare in picked up his grave…