THIS IS HOW IT ALL BEGAN!Avramović’s first coach LAYS BARE HIS SOUL: Aleksa’s childhood SECRETS and NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN photos

Aleksa Avramović – the first and last name of Serbia’s hero.

Computer Science teacher Branislav Bane Bokić is considered a Čačak local who has never raised his voice at his students, never punished them, or made them feel that there is something they cannot or are unable to do. Using his own pedagogical methods, he “unlocked” the students’ awareness that they should not accept anything less than a victory, but that they have to secure it in an honourable and dignified manner.

It was from him that Aleksa Avramović learnt his first basketball steps, as well as many other skills. The popular Avram enrolled in The Milica Pavlović Elementary School, where he studied and trained, and Branislav Bokić discovered for us how it had all begun.

“Aleksa came to Mladost BC aged seven or eight and, together with some thirty boys started to learn the basic basketball elements. We trained twice a week, and would sometimes play an interschool third match. He was different from other children in terms of confidence and dedication. He was small, but incredibly fast. He always had that smile on his face, a very spontaneous one too,” Bane, now a retired teacher, recounts describing one of the best attendees of his training school.

“Avram’s logical reasoning is incredible, which is where his confidence comes. You’ll notice that he is always in the middle in school photos, leaning against a trophy or a ball. And this says, ‘I’m the big shot, I am confident.’ I never arranged where they would stand in the photos, they stood wherever everyone wanted. In the first photo, you can see him with a trophy, and in the second, next to a ball. Avram’s characteristic is a positive defiance, he is all in and does not calculate. Even while he played at school, he’d virtually leave a piece of his heart on the court. That young man would play for the school team and the national team with equal zeal – you could see that right from the start,” Bokić said excitedly, adding that Avram would spend hours in the neighbourhood playgrounds on top of his training, tirelessly shooting hoops.

“Success was inevitable after such work. You’ve asked me how he used to handle defeats. I have to tell you that such situations were rare because we rarely lost. School teams with trophies and medals were filling up the school lobby. Avram grew up in an environment where success and victory were primary, but he was also taught to extend his hand to his opponent that defeated him honourably,“ Bane Bokić, who still follows the careers of all his students and attendees of the basketball school, pointed out.

“You’ve noticed that he’s brought a ball from Manila. That is actually his trophy, that is love, not the silver around your neck. Even here, he was able to impart energy to the entire team, and when he puts the pressure on and grabs forward, the whole team does the same. Coach Pešić recognized that in him very well and made up a team where there was no vanity. Avram shone in Manila because he had on his team the boys who also don’t play for the statistics. He was like that as a child as well,” Branislav Bokić said.

“I used to teach him Computer Science at the elementary school. In class, he was quiet, hard-working, and disciplined, always a straight-B student. He stayed the same later on, in the secondary school. We recently met at the Borac Hall when Čačak 94 and Vojvodina were playing. I approached him to ask him about his arm because he’d had an injury, but he just smiled broadly and cried out, ‘This is my first coach!’. That’s what he’s like – direct and big-hearted. His appearances are part of his directness – he doesn’t do it deliberately, he is simply spontaneous, and cannot behave differently,” concluded Branislav Bane Bokić, Aleksa Avramović’s first coach.

Kurir sport / Denis Čeković