Pini Gershon

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Pini Gershon
Israel
(manager)
Career highlights and awards
As head coach:
  • 2×
    2005
    )
  • 2001
    )
  • 2005
    )
  • 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors
    (2008)
  • 8×
    Israeli League
    champion (1993, 1999–2001, 2004–2006, 2009)
  • 8× Israeli Cup winner (1996, 1999–2001, 2004–2006, 2010)
  • Israeli League Coach of the Year
    (1993)

Pinhas "Pini" Gershon (

2005
.

He was named the

Bulgarian national team
.

Early life

Gershon grew up and studied in the city of

Moroccan Jew and his father was a Bulgarian Jew.[1] He experienced a rough childhood, as his biological father abandoned the family when he was one year old and left him with his mother, in poverty conditions and moved to England
; his step-father was abusive towards him, his sister and their mother.

Basketball biography

Playing career

In his youth, Gershon was a basketball player. He played for the "Maccabi South Tel Aviv" club, which was a sister team of Maccabi Tel Aviv, and he was one of the stars in its cadets team. He played for a number of years, including in the senior men's team of Maccabi South Tel Aviv, but his career as a basketball player ended at the age of 24, as the result of an injury.

Club coaching career

Pini Gershon on the court

After a short career as a basketball player, Gershon began to coach in different Israeli teams, among them, Maccabi Rishon LeZion, Hapoel Galil Elyon, Hapoel Gan Shmuel-Menashe, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem.

In 1993, he led

Maccabi Tel Aviv. In 1996, Gershon won the Israeli State Cup
, while he was the head coach of Hapoel Jerusalem, after beating Maccabi in the final.

In different interviews, he expressed himself poignantly against Maccabi Tel Aviv, and against the club's dominance of Israeli basketball. Therefore, it was quite a surprise[

editorializing] when he became Maccabi Tel Aviv's head coach at the end of 1998. At that time, Maccabi Tel Aviv was in a professional crisis, after several years of failing to enter the top stages of the EuroLeague
, a status which it had enjoyed in the past.

Under his, and his assistant

that season's EuroLeague competition
.

After the 2000–01 season, Gershon took a break from coaching, mainly to do some self-searching and to travel around the world. This temporary retirement lasted for two seasons, and in the summer of 2003, Gershon returned to his former position as the head coach of Maccabi. He had the goal of reaching the

2001 FIBA SuproLeague
title).

In 2005, Gershon led Maccabi Tel Aviv to another EuroLeague championship. Having been the league favorites all season long, Maccabi Tel Aviv advanced to the

2006 EuroLeague Final Four. That time, however, Maccabi lost in the title game to CSKA Moscow, by a score of 73–69. Gershon left Maccabi at the end of the season, and signed with the Greek club Olympiacos
.

In his first season as head coach of

EuroLeague season, where the team was eliminated by TAU Cerámica. Accusations of racism were raised, mainly by Olympiacos fans, concerning the lack of playing time for team star and crowd favorite, Sofoklis Schortsanitis
.

On November 24, 2008, he signed on as

NBA rules (administered by replacement on-court officials) differ from international rules, regarding technical fouls, which cause coaches to be automatically ejected. In 2010, Gershon parted ways with Maccabi, after their loss to Hapoel Gilboa Galil, in the Israeli League national finals. In August 2014, he signed a one-season contract to be Guy Goodes
' assistant coach with Maccabi Tel Aviv.

National team coaching career

Gershon worked as an assistant coach for the senior

Italian national basketball team in the preliminary round. In 2010, he parted ways with the Bulgarian national team, due to a dispute with the Bulgarian Basketball Federation.[2]

Personal life

Gershon often eagerly voices his belief in the part that divine guidance has had in his career. He has close ties with the Chabad movement.

In the year 2001, Gershon was accused of

African American people,[3]“The mocha-colored guys are smarter, but the dark colored ones are just guys off the street,” he said. “They’re dumb like slaves, they do whatever you tell them.” Gershon claimed that those remarks were only made as a joke, and that they were not reflective of his real opinions.[4]

Gershon was once a major shareholder of EZTD Inc., a firm in the controversial

Securities and Exchange Commission finding, by paying $1.7 million in fines and compensation to victims. EZTD Inc. was accused of illegally soliciting and taking money from 4,000 US investors.[5][6]

Club titles won as a head coach

See also

References

  1. ^ "Don't Call Me 'Black'" - Pini Gershon responds to his alleged racist comment, Globes, July 2nd, 2001.
  2. ^ Bulgaria say good-bye to Pini
  3. ^ The Jerusalem Post. "Article: Retire, Pini"
  4. ^ The Jerusalem Post. "Article: Gershon to Knesset: I'm not a racist."
  5. ^ Weinglass, Simona (January 28, 2018). "Regulator makes ad warning against fraud – starring ex-binary options firm owner". Times of Israel. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
  6. Securities and Exchange Commission
    . Retrieved January 28, 2018.

External links

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