God Created the Earth, Zadar Basketball, Part 2

The following year, Zadar won the Croatian Championship, while at the federal level, they were again the runners-up. Then the first Yugoslav national team players came from Zadar: Guido Pitoni and Madera Kalmeta. The basketball players of Zadar continued their series of success during 1947 and 1948 when they won the titles of champions of Dalmatia and Croatia, and in 1951 the basketball players of Zadar left the Zadar Sports Association and became an independent club - the Zadar Basketball Club. At the age of only 14, Giuseppe Pino Giergia played in the Zadar jersey for the first time. Although at the peak of his career, the charismatic Giergia was adored like a basketball god, his teammate Krešimir Ćosić, with whom Pino formed the Zadar basketball tandem of dreams, became even more famous.

Photo: Krešimir Ćosić & Pino Giergia, TZG Zadar

After dominating American college basketball, being elected to an All American collegiate team, and shattering the notion of non-American players being ephemeral in the homeland of basketball, Ćosić could, if he wanted, accept the invitation to sign the Los Angeles Lakers. And that had been decades before those who paved the way to the US basketball market for other Europeans such as Dražen Petrović, Toni Kukoč, Dino Rađa and Stojko Vranković. It was the 1973 NBA draft, or the summer after the season when the Lakers were short of another quality, tall player and lost in the final clash to the New York Knicks and their deadly inside line of Dave DeBuschere-Phil Jackson-Willis Reed. They saw such a player in Ćosić.

 "He is a numero uno. He was a basketball visionary, he knew everything, and he had everything: a great game insight, assists and a head as a playmaker. He shot like the killer winger and is known to have been an extra quality centre. He was the best European player of all time ", Dino Meneghin used to say about Ćosić. Meneghin was the Varese, Milan Olympia and Pallacanestro Trieste centre, one of the greats of European basketball and the 1970 NBA draft as the Atlanta Hawks' choice. It is now clear why at the top of the cult hall in Jazine, built in 1967 in a record 7o days for the participation of Zadar in the European Basketball Cup, for a long time, there was the recognizable inscription God made man and Zadar basketball. The original caption, however, was a bit different.

Photo: KK Zadar

A quiet family man, Ivica Černak, was employed at Vinilplastika in the early 1970s, a PVC processing factory located a kilometre barely from the city centre. In Vinylplastika workshops and plants and other Zadar factories, all the walls, doors, and interiors of the small offices inside the facility were pasted over with placards and cuttings from the daily, weekly or magazine press that wrote about the Zadar Basketball Club. There was also a board exclusively intended for monitoring basketball events. Constant and almost the only topic of all conversations during lunch, break or rest was Zadar basketball. When Zadar played in its hall in Jazine in the evening, the afternoon shift workers finished their work preparing for the match. With the help of other workers, it took Černak a whole week to make two large placards of plastic sunblinds and cloth. One had a harmless fan slogan, "There's no joking in Jazine, BC Zadar is up to defeat everyone".

In contrast, the other one had a more subversive caption for the then understanding of freedom of expression - "God created the Earth, Zadar basketball". Both inscriptions were decorated with a red-white-blue background that mimicked the Croatian tricolour flag, which was perceived as a presumptuous national provocation at the time of Croatia's national awakening and political movement in the 1970s. Immediately after placing the placard in the hall, the militia removed it without too much explanation, and in the next twenty years, the placard vanished without a trace. 

Photo: KK Zadar

The story of the placard slowly faded away, and it would have been completely forgotten if in the 1990s, after the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia and the independence of the Republic of Croatia, it did not reappear on the hall wall above the press section and a massive photograph of Krešimir Ćosić. The unknown author slightly changed the content of the placard, so now it said, "God made man, Zadar basketball". Although this caption did not significantly change the glorification of Zadar basketball, a small change did not cheer up the author of the 1971 original.

"It bothers me that the message is distorted. Zadar cannot create basketball, but the people of Zadar, the people who live in it ", complained Černak in an interview to a local newspaper, thus adding to the phenomenon of Zadar basketball with another controversial detail.

After winning three championship titles in 1965, 1967 and 1968, Ćosić temporarily bid goodbye to Zadar basketball and went to the USA to Brigham Young University, while Giergia went to Italy to work as a coach and player. Their return will bring new titles in 1974 and 1975 and the leave-taking of Pino Giergia the following year. It was the end of the big duo of Zadar basketball, crowned with five Yugoslav championship titles and winning the Cup in one of the most memorable games that Zadar played in that period. It was in 1970, and the final match was played in Split against Jugoplastika.

Photo: Pino Giergia, KK Zadar

Champagne had already been put on cooling in Split because ambitious citizens of Split counted on the fact that Zadar without Ćosić, who was in the USA, had a slim chance. However, Ćosić suddenly showed up at the game, much to the amazement of everyone and before a crowd of 6,000 in the packed hall, a third of whom were from Zadar, he helped Zadar with 19 points scored in the 64:60 victory. However, the hero of this story was Giergia, who scored six consecutive points at 57:57 at the very end and practically took the Cup to Zadar. The last championship that Zadar won with Ćosić and Giergia will be remembered for 25 consecutive championship victories. Zadar scored almost 90 points per game on average with a brilliant 53 per cent of the team's shot and received 78 points. It was a farewell from Giergia, but not from the winning habits. Still, it would take a whole decade for the champion generation to be re-established in Zadar.