Konstantinas Savickas

Konstantinas Savickas (Americanized his name as Connie Savickas; October 14, 1908, Punsk – 1992, Chicago) was an United States lawyer, Lithuanian basketball coach. He is often regarded as the father of Lithuanian basketball.

In 1909, he emigrated to United States with his parents. In Chicago, he achieved secondary education and graduated Northwestern University in 1929 by achieving Bachelor of Laws. As a student he actively exercised, in 1933-1935 he was editing Lithuanian youth newspaper "Vytis".

In 1935-1936, he lived in Kaunas, worked at Physical Culture Palace as a sports instructor. Basketball situation in Lithuania was deplorable at that time, tragic loss to Latvia with huge difference was a perfect proof of that. As a result, Savickas started coaching Lithuania national basketball team in 1935 and improved it a lot. He invited well-known Lithuanian-American basketball players Pranas Talzūnas, Feliksas Kriaučiūnas, Juozas Žukas and B.Budrikas to Lithuania. In Kaunas, 1936, he published his book "Krepšinis" (English: "Basketball"), wrote various articles about physical education. In 1937, Lithuania lost to Latvia again but only with score of 29:41, which was a huge improvement. Just before EuroBasket 1937, he transferred his head coach post to Feliksas Kriaučiūnas. Lithuania won EuroBasket for the first time during that competition in Latvia.

...
Wikipedia