Final Part. The Life after... Winning European Championship.

As we jumped for joy and celebrated our victory in Ljubljana, little did we know that Belarus team will never be assembled according to its current 1994 roster ever again. That is the saddest part of modern team sports in general, and basketball in particular. We were young and when you young you don't think about things like this ... Not that thinking would help or change the flow of events that soon followed.



It turns out that there were some US College coaches among the fans in Slovenia and they had the eyes on our team. Their names were Mike Jarvis and Scott Beeten. As the story goes, Alexander Koul and Andrei Sviridov - the two 7' footers (2m10cm) - were the first to safely depart to the U.S. soil and join The George Washington Colonials for the 1994/95 season. Andrei Krivonos and I had followed that path a year later, after winning yet another Belarus Championship title in 1995.

Part I. FIBA Under 22 Championship: Gold Medal Journey. Turkey.

So here we are in the Turkish city of Bursa, in the summer of 1993, trying to beat the odds and overcome the opponents that probably never even heard of Belarus. After being on that bus seat for 3 days, that first night in a hotel bed was a blessing. However, we found ourselves awake at 5 in the morning because it was a prayer time for Muslims and Mullah's voice from Minarets' speakers was encouraging the locals to wake up signifying the beginning of a new day.