Bogdan Tanjević

Bogdan Tanjević ( sr-Cyrl, Богдан Тањевић; born 13 February 1947), nicknamed "Boša" () is a Montenegrin professional basketball coach and former player.

He is best known for being KK Bosna's head coach when the club became the top-tier level European-wide champions by winning the FIBA European Champions Cup in the 1978–79 season as well as for coaching the Italian national team to the gold medal at EuroBasket 1999. He was elected to the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2019.

Early life and career

Tanjević was born on 13 February 1947 in Pljevlja, PR Montenegro, FPR Yugoslavia. Four years later, in 1951, four-year-old Bogdan was brought to Sarajevo, PR Bosnia-Herzegovina due to his Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) officer father Strahinja Tanjević getting reassigned there. Growing up in Sarajevo, he spent most of his summers back in Montenegro in his grandfather's village on the slopes of the Ljubišnja mountain near Pljevlja. Attending Veselin Masleša primary school in Sarajevo, young Boša got involved with basketball at the FIS outdoor courts alongside friends such as Uglješa Uzelac and Davorin Popović.

Tanjević began playing organized basketball at the hometown Mlada Bosna Sarajevo.

In 1965, after graduating high school, Tanjević moved to Belgrade where he enrolled at the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Philosophy, studying world literature.

Club career

OKK Beograd

In parallel with his university studies in Belgrade, young Tanjević played basketball at OKK Beograd on a team alongside established players Radivoj Korać, Trajko Rajković, Slobodan Gordić, and Miodrag Nikolić.

In summer 1971, he parted ways with OKK Beograd, agreeing principal terms with KK Oriolik, a Yugoslav First Basketball League (top-tier) club from Slavonski Brod that had just finished its second-ever top-tier season in 11th place (out of twelve) and was in the process of putting together its roster for the upcoming top league campaign. However, within a month of signing for Oriolik, instead of going to Slavonski Brod, Tanjević decided to abruptly end his playing career at the age of twenty-four by taking the head coaching offer at KK Bosna, a second division club from Sarajevo.

National team career

Despite a four-year run with the Yugoslav national junior (under-18) team, having made the final cut for several FIBA Europe youth competitions from 1964 until 1966 under head coach Ranko Žeravica, Tanjević wasn't able to make the next step and earn a spot on the Yugoslav full squad.

Youth

Sixteen-year-old Tanjević received his first call up for the Yugoslav junior national team by its head coach Žeravica in 1963. Tanjević later talked of his surprise to have gotten his debut considering he played for a "provincial lower-league club KK Željezničar Sarajevo", commending Žeravica for not favouring players from big established clubs over those from smaller ones.

In spring 1964, sixteen-year-old Tanjević, still with Željezničar at the time, made the Yugoslav junior team for the European Championship for Juniors in Naples in April 1964. As the youngest player on that roster, he had to fight hard for his spot until the very last training camp game, just edging out Staša Đorđević of Radnički Belgrade for the 12th roster spot. Consisting of youngsters most of whom wouldn't later go on to notable basketball careers (Ljubiša Janjić, Anton Bračun, Ljubiša Stanković, Srđan Skulić, Miljenko Valcić, Slobodan Jelić, Tihomir Pavlović, Jurica Kosta, Danko Hočevar, Momčilo Pazmanj, and Andrej Brenk), the Yugoslav team lost 3 of its 5 games at the championship. Tanjević got very little playing time, without managing to score a single basket at the competition.

In summer 1966, 19-year-old Tanjević, now an OKK Beograd player, was selected for the Yugoslav junior team sent to the European Championship for Juniors in Porto San Giorgio on the Italian Adriatic coast in late August 1966. Unlike two years earlier when he mostly sat on the bench, this time Tanjević actually got a bit of playing time on a roster alongside players that would go on to reach great heights in the game of basketball such as Krešimir Ćosić, Aljoša Žorga, Duci Simonović, Damir Šolman, Kosta Grubor, Dragiša Vučinić, Dragan Kapičić, etc. Yugoslavia made it to the final, but suffered a 21-point blowout by Soviet Union in the gold medal game. For his part, Tanjević appeared in all five games Yugoslavia played at the championship, recording a modest output of 2.4 points per game.

Club coaching career

KK Bosna

In 1971, twenty-four-year-old Tanjević got named as head coach of KK Bosna, a club playing in the second-tier Yugoslav Second Federal League.

The appointment happened quite abruptly as Tanjević, an active player still, had just agreed on the terms of his transfer to KK Oriolik from Slavonski Brod. Having a whole month before going to Slavonski Brod to finalize the transfer and sign the necessary paperwork, Tanjević spent time in Sarajevo by frequenting KK Bosna's daily summer training sessions, a second-tier club with a batch of young players preparing for its upcoming Second Federal League season. Quite unexpectedly, within weeks, young Tanjević got offered the head coaching position at Bosna by the club's brass who liked the young man's vocal nature and enthusiasm. After months of wrangling during which he had to re-arrange different details of his personal and professional lives, he decided to quit playing basketball at the age of twenty-four and take the unexpected head coaching offer.

1971–72: Gaining promotion

Inheriting a roster of youngsters such as nineteen-year-old Žarko Varajić, Anto Đogić, Rođeni Krvavac, twenty-one-year-old center Zdravko Čečur, Jovo Terzić, twenty-two-year-old Mirsad Milavić, Milan Pavlić, Slobodan Pejović, and Aleksandar Nadaždin, Tanjević brought in twenty-two-year-old guard Svetislav Pešić on loan from Partizan Belgrade and Bruno Soče, also arriving from Belgrade. Furthermore, the head coach sought to establish authority over players only a couple of years younger than him. To that end he re-hauled the training regiment, instituting practice sessions twice a day while introducing strict discipline.

The new approach produced immediate results as the club managed to gain promotion in Tanjević's first season. The promotion was secured in dramatic fashion in a single-game playoff against city rivals KK Željezničar because the two clubs sat atop the Second League's west division, having split the regular season home-and-away series, so it was decided that a single game (the so-called ''majstorica'') would determine which team gets promoted. Played on 28 April 1972 in front of 7,000 spectators at the Skenderija Hall, only two weeks after the same venue hosted the iconic Yugoslav partisan film '' Valter brani Sarajevo'' premiere, the game was a tense affair. KK Bosna, that saw its 25-year-old head coach Tanjević suit up and play 20 minutes after a whole season of not playing competitive basketball, ended up winning 65–59 behind Pešić's 26 points. It was a historic success for KK Bosna that prior to Tanjević's arrival spent 16 seasons stuck in the Second Federal League, unable to overcome the last hurdle before the top-tier First Federal League.

1972–73: Delibašić signs; club's and coach's top-flight debut

Over the summer of 1972, preparing for its first ever top-flight campaign, the newly promoted club pulled off a remarkable coup by bringing in eighteen-year-old top prospect Mirza Delibašić from Sloboda Tuzla, in the process beating out bigger Yugoslav clubs such as KK Partizan for the youngster's signature. The signing was preceded by a year-long recruitment courtship that culminated during the summer. Knowing Partizan already managed to get KK Sloboda's agreement to release Delibašić, Bosna management intensified their direct approach to the player on two fronts — Bosna sports society president Vukašin "Vule" Vukalović made frequent visits to Delibašić's parents cajoling them with financial terms while the team's young coach, only 7 years Delibašić's senior, essentially stalked the player during his training camp for the upcoming European Championship for Juniors in Zadar, eventually befriending and persuading him that Bosna would be the best fit for him. Furthermore, the club managed to buy out Pešić from Partizan for a DM10,000 transfer fee. Just before the season began, Bosna also brought in Ratko Radovanović, a tall and raw sixteen-year-old from Nikšić who hadn't even played organized basketball up to that point, however, liking the teenager's size and motor skills, Tanjević believed he could be molded into a good player, a move that would pay dividends a few years later.

Playing their debut season in the country's top-tier competition, Tanjević's young Bosna team finished in 12th spot (out of 14 clubs) with a 10–16 record. Though in the end they avoided relegation comfortably, it wasn't without a fight, at one point recording nine straight league losses, all of which was considered disappointing. Bosna's losing streak included a 77-94 home loss to the city rivals KK Željezničar (that still managed to gain promotion to the top-tier league despite the previous season's promotion playoff loss due to the league expanding by two teams). The game, first ever meeting of two Sarajevo-based teams in the country's top-tier league, was played on 17 December 1972 in Skenderija's small hall in front of 1,500 spectators due to the main hall already being booked for a commercial fair. During the season's low point, after finally ending the nine-game losing streak, the level of deflation among the team's fans was such that Tanjević got approached by '' Oslobođenje'' journalist Kemal Kurspahić with an offer of addressing the public directly via an op-ed of sorts in the city's only daily newspaper — Tanjević accepted, penning a piece urging fans not to give up on the team and boldly predicting a league title in the 1976–77 season. With the skillful young players on its roster led by the country's most sought-after young talent Delibašić, many expected Bosna to be more than just mere relegation battlers. Delibašić who contributed with 15.8 points per game over the 26-game season, already the target of criticism over his shaky defensive displays throughout the season, publicly admitted disappointment with the team's overall performance as well as his own in particular while expressing confidence that the team still has title potential.

1973–74: Achieving a European spot

The following season, 1973–74, the team made remarkable progress with a 14–12 record that was good enough for the 4th spot (their record was identical with KK Partizan and Radnički Belgrade, but Bosna had a better head-to-head record). It was another historic result because it meant that Bosna would compete in Europe the following season for the first time in its history.

1974–75: A year-long army stint

After coaching the Yugoslavia junior national team and winning gold at the European Championship for Juniors during summer of 1974 in Orléans