Juozas Jurgėla (August 11, 1911 – May 2, 1961) was a

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

n basketball player. He won gold medal at

EuroBasket 1939 The 1939 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 1939, was the third FIBA EuroBasket regional basketball championship, held by FIBA. Eight national teams affiliated with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) took par ...

with Lithuania national basketball team.

Biography

Studied in

Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...

, from 1925 played basketball in Kaunas Grandis club. As a member of Grandis club he won third place during the first Lithuania nation Olympics. He was invited to Lithuania national basketball team twice (1937, Riga and 1939, Kaunas). He won gold medal at

. Noted for mature and tactical play making. After the end of the

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he moved to Germany, and later to United States.

Sources

* United States of America Lithuanians (Jungtinių Amerikos Valstijų lietuviai) – Science and encyclopedia publishing center, Vilnius, 1998 * Vidas Mačiulis, Vytautas Gudelis. Halė, kurioje žaidė Lubinas ir Sabonis. 1939–1989 – Respublikinis sporto kombinatas, Kaunas, 1989 Lithuanian men's basketball players FIBA EuroBasket–winning players 1911 births 1961 deaths Lithuanian refugees in the United States 20th-century American sportsmen {{1910s-US-basketball-bio-stub