{"id":57805,"date":"2012-10-07T09:15:21","date_gmt":"2012-10-07T06:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=57805"},"modified":"2023-04-03T16:42:19","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T13:42:19","slug":"white-shadow-led-to-basketball-boon-in-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2012\/10\/07\/white-shadow-led-to-basketball-boon-in-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018White Shadow\u2019 led to basketball boon in Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ken Howard, a coach in \u201cThe White Shadow,\u2019 \u2019was heard loud and clear \u2014 in Turkey.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

ISTANBUL \u2014 Ask any Turkish citizen over the age of 35 what led to the stunning growth of basketball in this soccer-crazed country during the 1980s, and they\u2019ll credit Coolidge, Salami, Gomez, and Coach Reeves.<\/p>\n

Several years before NBA games were televised live to nations in Europe, back when households in many European countries had just one television channel, thousands of Turkish kids were glued to episodes of \u201cThe White Shadow,\u201d the CBS series from the late 1970s and early \u201980s that chronicled the mostly African-American Carver High School basketball team in Los Angeles and its white coach, played by Ken Howard.<\/p>\n

The show, wildly popular among American kids in the 1980s, showed children in Istanbul and Ankara that wealth was not needed to play the game. Basketball programs in Turkish cities experienced a boon; kids were not only playing, but tagging each other with names of the show\u2019s characters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some effects that change children\u2019s and people\u2019s lives,\u201d said Turkish television journalist Kaan Kural, who is from the capital of Ankara. \u201cFor example, \u2018The White Shadow,\u2019 it was a moment for Turkish basketball. Many high schools built basketball courts after \u2018The White Shadow.\u2019 Everybody was calling each other Salami, Coolidge, and everything. Everybody was watching it on Sundays. It was the only show we could watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Related<\/h2>\n
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  • Turkish team defeats Celtics, 97-91<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    Basketball has expanded exponentially in this massive country over the past two decades, so much so that the host Turkish team reached the finals of the 2010 World Championships.<\/p>\n

    The Ulker Sports Arena, where the Celtics were beaten by Fenerbahce Ulker Friday, is a state-of-the-art sports palace with an adjoining practice facility for the Turkish League team \u2014 an example of the sport\u2019s stunning growth since those \u201cWhite Shadow\u201d days.<\/p>\n

    \u201cBasketball is becoming very popular in Turkey, step by step,\u201d said Naci Cansun, a Turkish native and senior director of NBA Turkey. \u201cIn the performance of the national team, in the number of Turks playing in the NBA, and probably more importantly, the types of events that Turkey\u2019s hosting around basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

    In addition to the 2010 World Championships, the country will host 2014 Women\u2019s World Championships and it also hosted the Euro League Final Four last May.<\/p>\n

    According to current FIBA rankings, the Turkish men are seventh in the world, having slipped when they failed to qualify for the London Olympics. The Turkish women shot up eight spots to 13th after reaching the Olympic quarterfinals, losing to Russia by 3.<\/p>\n

    Without being prompted, Cansun agreed with Kural\u2019s assessment that \u201cThe White Shadow\u201d was integral in sparking basketball interest in Turkey.<\/p>\n

    \u201cTurkey has always had very good fundamentals for basketball,\u201d Cansun said. \u201cTurkey has a culture of sports clubs, and Turkey clubs not only had a football [soccer] team but a basketball team. There was always no lack of spectators. It wasn\u2019t considered an elite sport until 25 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Cansun said he and his friends would trade months-old Betamax tapes of NBA games just to watch the action because the league had not yet become global. That carried into the early 1990s, when the US Olympic men\u2019s team in Barcelona \u2014 The Dream Team \u2014 popularized basketball all over Europe.<\/p>\n

    Although more children in Turkey were shooting baskets in schoolyards, the sport became an international factor primarily because of the coaching of Aydin Ors, considered the father of modern Turkish basketball. Ors helped channel the talent and energy generated from \u201cThe White Shadow,\u201d the Michael Jordan era, and the Dream Team into a team that became a consistent contender around Europe.<\/p>\n

    Before the 1990s, Turkey was an afterthought among its European foes while Russia, Lithuania, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Italy competed for supre\u00admacy. Ors sought to change that.<\/p>\n

    \u201cTurkish standards are now high in European basketball, so I am not surprised,\u201d he said. \u201cI started with the senior team [Efes Pilsen] 20 years ago, we won the Korac Cup [a European tournament] in 1996, and for any team \u2014 football, basketball \u2014 that was the first champion for Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Having coached many of those senior players as juniors, Ors led the club to four Turkish League titles, the first coming in 1993, and that same team also lost in the Finals of the European Cup to rival Greece. Slowly, Turkey was becoming a Euro\u00adpean basketball factor.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThey started to believe we can do [great things],\u201d Ors said. \u201cWe can play in Europe for \u00adevery [trophy]. And by this time, the national team is growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

    A pinnacle came when the Turkish team reached the final of the European Cup in 2001, losing to Yugoslavia\/Serbia, 78-69. A member of Ors\u2019s 2000 Euro\u00adpean Cup semifinalist with Efes Pilsen, Hedo Turkoglu, became the first Turkish-born player to play in the NBA in 2000.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWe began to build a generation of basketball players,\u201d Cansun said. \u201cAll we needed was to appeal to the masses and that came through pop culture, pushing kids to play basketball, making it look cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

    There are now five Turkish players in the NBA after former Celtic Semih Erden left to sign with Anadolo Efes of the Turkish League. Three more Turks were selected in the final 10 picks of last June\u2019s NBA Draft.<\/p>\n

    The Turkish League is transforming into one of Europe\u2019s more competitive leagues, and Fenerbahce Ulker has an opportunity to crack the Euro League Final Four. No Turkish team has ever won a Euro League title or even been \u00adrunner-up.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI think the Dream Team taught players in Europe that basketball can be played at a different level,\u201d Kural said. \u201cAnd the Turkish have begun to pick up that you win with defense, because you can\u2019t score 200 points. The Turkish League is second only to Spanish League and it\u2019s getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Cansun\u2019s job at the NBA office in Turkey is to promote the game locally and develop marketing opportunities. Turkey\u2019s economy was not affected by the European downturn; a testament to that are the many new and under-construction buildings in Istanbul.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI think there are enough great players in Turkey,\u201d said Cansun. \u201cOur main responsibility is on the commercial side. We have to try to create a fan base to interact with on an ongoing basis, find companies who are able to fund this relationship with the fans.<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s the model that you would see in the US, and we hope that the Turkish basketball community starts to [increase] its practices when they see the NBA coming to town. That\u2019s why we are organizing these basketball tournaments.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe hope is that the local market is going to start imitating those, and out of those events will come the Michael Jordan of Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Ken Howard, a coach in \u201cThe White Shadow,\u2019 \u2019was heard loud and clear \u2014 in Turkey. ISTANBUL \u2014 Ask any Turkish citizen over the age of 35 what led to the stunning growth of basketball in this soccer-crazed country during the 1980s, and they\u2019ll credit Coolidge, Salami, Gomez, and Coach Reeves. Several years before NBA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":57806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3996],"tags":[5931,8452,8451],"class_list":["post-57805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-basketball","tag-ken-howard","tag-white-shadow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}