Legendary basketball coach Giannis Ioannidis died Wednesday at the age of 78. Fans liked to call the former basketball player and professional coach “Blonde.”
According to media reports, Ioannidis has been suffering from dementia for the past four years.
He was considered the best Greek professional basketball head coach of all time, as he holds the most Greek championship titles among top-level clubs (19 in total, 14 with Aris and 5 with Olympiacos).
With 12 league titles and six cup titles, Ioannidis became one of the figures most closely associated with the golden age of Greek basketball in the 1980s and 1990s, when Aris and Olympiacos reached their greatest heights. He also holds the record for the most championship titles, beating the legendary Zeljko Obradovic by one with 418 victories.
Ioannidis has also been involved in politics, representing the First Constituency of Thessaloniki for the New Democracy Party from 2004 to 2015, and also served as Minister of Sports under Prime Ministers Kostas Karamanlis and Adonis Samaras.
Yiannis Ioannidis was born in Thessaloniki and studied agriculture at the Faculty of Geotechnical Sciences at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
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