Milan Opačić ( sr-cyr, Милан Опачић; born 16 July 1960) is a Serbian

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

administrator, coach and

sports manager An athletic coach is a person coaching in sport, involved in the direction, instruction, and training of a sports team or athlete. History The original sense of the word ''Coach'' is that of a horse-drawn carriage, deriving ultimately from the ...

. Opačić is a former executive director of the Association of Basketball Coaches of Yugoslavia and former

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

Crvena zvezda Fudbalski klub Crvena zvezda ( sr-cyrl, Фудбалски клуб Црвена звезда, lit=Red Star Football Club), commonly referred to as Crvena zvezda () and colloquially referred to as Red Star Belgrade in anglophone media, is a ...

Early life and career

Opačić was born in Užička Požega,

FPR Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...

(now

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

). He attended the 13 October Gymnasium in

Paraćin Paraćin ( sr-Cyrl, Параћин, ) is a town and municipality located in the Pomoravlje District of central Serbia. Located in the Velika Morava river valley, north of Kruševac and southeast of Kragujevac, the town had a population of 22,349 ...

(1975–76) and the Zemun Gymnasium (1976–1979). While he trained basketball at young age, Opačić played at a

point guard The point guard (PG), also called the one or the point, is one of the Basketball positions, five positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position and is usually the shortest player ...

position, and his role model was Zoran Moka Slavnić. He graduated from the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and later from the Basketball College. Opačić was assistant to maintenance director at PVC Petrohemija in

Pančevo Pančevo (Serbian Cyrillic: Панчево, ; ; ; ; ) is a list of cities in Serbia, city and the administrative center of the South Banat District in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. It is located on the shores of rivers Timiș (ri ...

from 1987 to 1988 and a senior independent constructor at the

Military Technical Institute Belgrade Military Technical Institute (; abbr. ) is a Serbian weapons and aircraft design institute, headquartered in Belgrade, and governed by the Ministry of Defence (Serbia), Serbian Ministry of Defence. It is a top-level military scientific research ...

from 1988 to 1994.

Basketball career

Opačić worked as an

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

for a while, and then devoted himself entirely to basketball. During 1980s he was a head coach for KK Užička Republika and KK Vojvoda Stepa, Belgrade-based teams in the 5th-tier and 3rd-tier leagues. From 1990 to 1992, he was a chief of coaching staff for Infos RTM Belgrade of the

YUBA League The YUBA League was the top-tier men's professional basketball league in Serbia and Montenegro (previously FR Yugoslavia). Founded in 1992 and folded in 2006, it was run by the Basketball Federation of Serbia and Montenegro. The name ''YUBA Le ...

. Afterwards, Opačić was a head coach for Belgrade-based team KK ABM Neterstim, between 1992 and 1996. Opačić was the general manager for

from 2008 to 2010, when Nemanja Bjelica,

Tadija Dragićević Tadija Dragićević ( sr-cyr, Тадија Драгићевић; born 28 January 1986) is a Serbian former professional basketball player. Standing at , he played the power forward (basketball), power forward position. Professional career Dragi� ...

, Elmedin Kikanović, Marko Kešelj, Nemanja Nedović, Vladimir Štimac played for this club. From 2011 to 2019, he was an

FIBA The International Basketball Federation (FIBA ; French language, French: ) is an association of national organizations which governs the sport of basketball worldwide. FIBA defines the rules of basketball, specifies the Basketball equipment ...

expert associate at its headquarters in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

and as the

head coach A head coach, senior coach, or manager is a professional responsible for training and developing athletes within a sports team. This role often has a higher public profile and salary than other coaching positions. In some sports, such as associat ...

of the Tamil Nadu state team from

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

he won the Indian National Basketball Championship in 2018. He currently lives and works as the

technical director A technical director (TD) is usually a senior technical person within e.g. a software company, engineering firm, film studio, theatre company or television studio. They are responsible for overseeing and coordinating all of the technical aspect ...

BG Basketball Academy in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

. Milan Opačić is the founder, owner and former director (until 2019) of the international basketball camp ''YUBAC,'' which has a license from the Basketball Association of Serbia and which is the only camp in the ex-Yugoslavia region that organized the FIBA competition.

Željko Obradović Željko Obradović ( sr-cyrl, Желимир "Жељко" Обрадовић, ; born 9 March 1960) is a Serbian professional basketball Coach (basketball), coach and former professional player who is the head coach for KK Partizan, Partizan of the ...

, Dušan Ivković,

Duško Vujošević Duško Vujošević ( sr-Cyrl, Душко Вујошевић; born 3 March 1959) is a Serbian former basketball Coach (basketball), coach. He is currently active as coach consultant of the Montenegrin ABA League club KK Studentski centar, Studen ...

Igor Kokoškov Igor Stefan Kokoškov ( sr-Cyrl, Игор Стефан Кокошков; born 17 December 1971) is a Serbian professional basketball coach. He had spent 19 years in the NBA as an assistant coach, with a brief stint as head coach for the Phoenix ...

Svetislav Pešić Svetislav "Kari" Pešić ( sr-Cyrl, Светислав "Кари" Пешић; born 28 August 1949) is a Serbian professional basketball coach who is currently the head coach of the Serbia men's national team. Playing career During his club ...

, Aleksandar Đorđević and others took part in the work of this camp, whose promoter is Vasilije Micić. Opačić is a member of the Executive Board of FIBA's World Association of Basketball Coaches (FIBA WABC). Milan Opačić is a participant and organizer of relevant coaching seminars with

Don Nelson Donald Arvid Nelson (born May 15, 1940) is an American former professional basketball player and head coach. Nelson is second all-time in regular season wins of any coach in NBA history, with 1,335 (he held the record for most wins for almost 12 ...

Gregg Popovich Gregg Charles Popovich (born January 28, 1949) is an American professional basketball executive and former coach who is the president for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was the List of current NBA head co ...

, Larry Brown, Rubén Magnano,

Ettore Messina Ettore Messina (born 30 September 1959) is an Italian professional basketball coach who is the head coach of Olimpia Milano of the Italian Lega Basket Serie A (LBA). He has won four EuroLeague championships as a head coach. Messina is regarded a ...

, Pini Gershon,

Pablo Laso Pablo Laso Biurrun (born 13 October 1967) is a Spanish professional basketball coach and former player who is the current head coach for Saski Baskonia of the Spanish Liga ACB and the EuroLeague. He was the head coach of Real Madrid for eleven s ...

, Sergio Scariolo, Svetislav Pešić and

Božidar Maljković Božidar "Boža" Maljković ( sr-Cyrl, Божидар "Божа" Маљковић; born 20 April 1952) is a Serbian former professional basketball coach and current president of the Olympic Committee of Serbia. He is one of the most successful b ...

. He was a lecturer at professional coaching seminars in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

in 1997 and

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

in 1998, executive director of the ''Basketball Clinic Belgrade'' ( sr-cyr, Београдски кошаркашки семинар) from 2002 to 2006, organized by the Association of Basketball Coaches of Serbia, and publisher and member of the editorial board from the first issue of the magazine ''Coach'' ( sr-cyr, Тренер)."For the new era"
Coach, 2003. Retrieved: October 6, 2021. He created ''Basketball Time Planner'' in 2005.

References

External links

YUBAC camp website

Milan Opacic , 2018 at Chennai
at YouTube {{DEFAULTSORT:Opacic, Milan 1960 births Living people Serbian businesspeople KK Crvena Zvezda executives KK Mladost Zemun players Sportspeople from Požega, Serbia Basketball players from Zlatibor District Point guards Serbian basketball executives and administrators Serbian expatriate basketball people in India Serbian expatriate basketball people in Libya Serbian men's basketball coaches Serbian men's basketball players Yugoslav basketball coaches Yugoslav men's basketball players