Ural Great: we will fight
This week Ural Great held traditional annual presentation of its team. Perm fans met the players, coaches and managers of the club and for the first time in this season had a chance to ask questions and get autographs
Oleg Oshchepkov, deputy of the Governor of Perm region
I am very glad to be here in this very warm company. I see here people who are on the same wave. For the past few years the administration of the Perm region has been bearing the responsibility for promotion of basketball in our area. We confirm our responsibility for this year too. This is our common project for several reasons. 25 times a year several thousands of people come to Molot Sports Hall to see and support their team. Ural Great is just a peak of an iceberg at which foundation there hundreds of young boys who make their choice for basketball. Ural Great was the first organization that built up a system of promotion of childrens basketball. We think about our future. The administration supports the club and is actively working with investors who can help the team. We will not let the high level of basketball achieved by this club in the previous years go down. Everybody will render his help as he can. And we hope that people will come to all home games of the team and support it as they only are able to. We have a great team, excellent coach, good managers and a new brand style. I would really want that the energy that is worked out in Perm by common efforts of the players, coaches and regional administration would let us in every game we play. And I hope our fans will stay with us.
Olga Antonova, President of Ural Great Basketball Club
Good evening dear friends. I hope you remain our friends even after all those dramatic events that followed us previous season. We finished it on a positive wave. We won several last important games and managed to get our fans back to the gym. This is very important for us because only your support can help us enter a brand new level, return to the number of top teams of Russia and Europe.
Life is changing every day and we do too. We change the structure of the clubs management and our approach to the organization of the game. We want to show new modern basketball to our fans. Thats why after a long search we signed Sharon Drucker to be the head coach of Ural Great. As the Board of Directors believes, Sharon has such qualities as professionalism, youth, energy and taste of victories. The team that he coached before won ULEB Cup. Our new team is also a combination of youth and experience. We have veterans Vassiliy Karasev and Vyacheslav Shushakov as well as champions of Europe amoung juniors Egor Vyaltsev and Evgeniy Kolesnikov. The way that we develop is positive of which evidence can be the preseason camp of our team. We played with the teams participating in FIBA and ULEB Cups. Most of these games were won and if we lost the margin was minimal. I am sure we can play against any opponent on equal. Especially at home where we have our devoted fans.
We developed structure of our club. For the first we built an organized system for bringing up our own players. We opened a boarding school for 11 talented boys born 1990-1991. their coach is famous Andrey Burov who led the Russian NT (1988 year of birth) to the silver medals of the championship of Europe. Then there comes a team that represents our club in the Junior Basketball League and finally our farm club that participates in the Superleague B. We have prospects for further development and a wish to promote this project as a long-term one.
We changed our brand style. As any other modern company we invited professional designers who worked out a new logo for our club. We chose dragon to be our symbol. We like this character. He is a fighter, aggressive but not malicious, he can always protect himself. We think this character will increase the sales of our souvenirs and give our club more personality. Every club has a basket ball in its logo. And we needed to have a hero with character.
Sharon Drucker, head coach of Ural Great
I am very glad so many people came to the presentation of our team. This is a nice surprise for the players and coaches. I wish that at the end of this season we could meet again and my team would present you a trophy of one of the tournaments we participate in this year. I come from Israel. In my country as well as everywhere in Europe the name of Ural Great is famous for many years. I came here for the first time in spring. I saw this city, the gym, organization and realized that Perm deserves to restore its leading positions in Europe. I explained all foreign players whom I called to come here that nowhere in Europe they could find such a gym full of so much devoted fans. We have players from all over the world. Now we have to work so that they would become a real team. Coaches dont like to promise victories or trophies but we can promise you our hard work so that you could be proud of your team. Most important is not to win the game but the wish that the players have when they enter the game court. And maximum efforts. Every team has its ups and downs throughout the season. But if all of us players, coaches, managers and fans join our efforts, we can achieve impossible. This is the miracle of basketball. I thank all my players and my assistants Gundars Vetra and Matan Harush for their hard work and efforts. And I wish all of us a successful season.
Questions:
Last season there was a young player Dmitry Poltavsky in our team. He got a serious injury that made him finish his playing career. How did the club help him?
Olga Antonova: Thats true, Dmitry received a very bad injury in the road game. We brought him to Perm, paid for his treatment here and then sent to a very good hospital in Moscow at our expense too. Doctors saved him despite their first diagnosis was paralysis of his legs. Thanks God, now he can walk. Our club paid him a compensation. Now he is back to his parents house, our club fulfilled all its obligations and we parted as friends.
What did the coach of Latvian Barons know about Ural Great last spring?
Gundars Vetra: To answer this question lets go back to 1997. At that you started to organize a really big team here in Perm. And I am very glad that me and my friends from SCKA who came here for Christmas Cup participated in this. After that I became a coach and kept following the development of Ural Great. Besides, for many years your team had its preseason camps in my home town of Ventspils, I visited several of those games in Latvia.
What is Sergey Belov doing now?
lga Antonova: He is still taking an active part in our Board of Directors.
leg Oshchepkov: We discussed with him today possible ways of our cooperation. Belov is a legendary man. He has very important connections in Moscow. We hope he can help us in our negotiations with future sponsors. We would like the big industrial companies and commercial structures would take part in investing of our club. And Sergey Belovs support becomes very important in this relation.
Is it the final roster of the team?
Sharon Drucker: We hope it is. If everybody manages to stay away from injuries we will keep this roster till the end of the season.
Why Jurica Golemac decided to stay in Perm for the second year? What does his family think about it?
Jurica Golemac: If I wouldnt like it here I wouldnt have stayed in Perm. I like the city, the team and its fans. My family is staying with me here in Perm.
How long it took foreign players think over the offer from Ural Great?
Jasmin Hukic: I was in Perm two years ago with Hapoel Tel Aviv and so I knew what this team is. It didnt take me long to make the decision.
ndre Hutson: I didnt know much about Ural Great before except for that I played against this team two years ago in Kazan in the Final Four of the FIBA Europe League. The coach told me about the city, team and its fans. So I agreed to join this club.
rrell Lyday: I heard about Ural Great as I played in college from my schoolmates. I know people here in Perm like basketball. I wish us all a successful season.
WHAT does Egor Vyaltsev think about invitation of John Robert Holden to the Russian National Team and how does he estimate his game?
gor Vyaltsev: I wouldnt want to estimate anything. This is a job for journalists. You know that Russian NT has a problem on positions 1 and 5. Vassiliy Karasev who has done so much for our country finished his career in the NT. And the newcomers Anton Ponkrashov for example are too young now. I am not strong enough too, I need to develop my skills. I know John very well, I spent two years playing with him in CSKA. He has a very serious approach to the game and gives 100% of himself on the court.
How our new captain estimates this team? Shall we fight against monsters in this championship?
Vassiliy Karasev: We will definitely be good rivals to any team. But the result usually depends on many factors.
What are the goals of the team for the season?
lga Antonova: In the FIBA Challenge Cup we have to take the 1st-2nd place so that we could qualify to FIBA Cup for next season. In Russia our opponents are very strong but we will try to qualify higher than the 8th place. We put our hopes for the Russian Cup too. We want to host Final Four of this tournament in Perm and need to be among four clubs qualifying.
