Obituary – Legendary Serbian coach Sava Grozdanović

Sava Grozdanović, a legendary Volleyball coach, passed away yesterday in Athens at the age of 100. He was born on November 23, 1925 in Jelašnica near Niš, just a year and a half after Volleyball was first introduced in Serbia.

Grozdanović grew up in a clerical family, and such an upbringing likely shaped him from an early age into a compassionate and humane person. Throughout his life, he helped both those close to him and those far away. Initially, he did so as a Volleyball coach, through his pedagogical work with players whom he taught the game – and from whom he himself continued to learn. At the time, there was a shortage of qualified personnel, so anyone willing to dedicate themselves to the common good was welcome. All that was required was goodwill and enthusiasm to develop the sport. It was therefore not unusual for one individual to work with several clubs and hold multiple roles. Sava, for example, served as President of the Volleyball Referees’ Association in the early 1950s. About a decade later, following an open competition, he was appointed the first professional (paid, as it was said at the time) coach of the Yugoslav Volleyball Federation.

He entered the sport by chance – his friends were one player short of forming a team. A young man who had played football suddenly fell in love with Volleyball. It was 1947 in Belgrade, where his family had moved after the war, and already the following year he embarked on a coaching career. When his players moved from Radnički to Železničar, he followed them – they were not only a team, but a close-knit group.

His coaching career truly belonged in Ripley’s Believe It or Not. He coached his own brother Lazar, later a long-serving head coach of the Yugoslav national team, as well as his wife Radojka – raised in a home for war orphans, a volleyball player for Lokomotiv Zagreb, Partizan, Crvena Zvezda, Panathinaikos and the Yugoslav national team. He often endured jokes that it was easy to be a great coach when your wife was the best player. He coached both Crvena Zvezda and Partizan, men’s and women’s teams, junior and senior squads, the Yugoslav and Greek national teams. One of his players was Karolos Papoulias, later President of Greece. He also coached his own first coach, Ivica Trinajstić, who would later elevate Italian Volleyball.

Until 1958, he simultaneously coached all Železničar teams, before focusing “only” on their senior men’s team and Crvena Zvezda’s women’s squad. In 1960, he won the national championship with Partizan’s women. At the request of Athens, the Yugoslav federation sent him in the summer of 1961 to lead Greek Volleyball. He stayed for a year and a half, then returned to Partizan in Belgrade – for a roof over his head. The Greeks could not understand why he would leave a well-paid position there for a modest apartment in Belgrade.

Železničar, however, was (and remained) his club. He returned in 1964 and achieved a remarkable feat – winning the national championship with the senior team without losing a single match. His stay did not last long, though. The following year, a conflict arose between the club and the railway sports association, and Sava – who that year received the October Award of the City of Belgrade – moved to a place where conditions allowed normal work. That place was Crvena Zvezda, with whose women’s team he won championships in 1967 and 1968.

For most of his career in Yugoslavia, he worked with the national teams. He prepared the women’s team for the 1951 European Championship in Paris, but did not travel with them for an astonishing reason by today’s standards – he was not issued a passport. The team returned with bronze, the first medal ever won by Yugoslav Volleyball. Later, he led the men’s team to gold medals at the Mediterranean Games in Naples in 1963 and Tunis in 1967, as well as at the 1965 Universiade in Budapest.

Greek Volleyball continued to need a top coach, and Panathinaikos – through Stjepan Bobek, who was coaching its football team and whom Sava himself had recommended for that role in 1961 – persuaded him to return to Athens. From 1970 to 1973, both the men’s and women’s teams of Panathinaikos were the best in Greece. He later stepped aside, returning to the bench in the 1979/80 season, when he led Panathinaikos to the final of the Men’s Cup Winners’ Cup (a 3-2 loss to Panini MODENA of Italy).

In 1981, he founded the travel agency “Golden Way” in Athens and was extremely successful in this new venture as well. He always welcomed people from his homeland with open arms and was eager to help. There was hardly a trip by any Serbian team or athlete to Greece without Sava’s support – a tradition now continued by his son Ilija and daughter Dragana, to whom he entrusted the agency.

Although he stepped away from coaching, he continued to follow Volleyball – and sport in general – very closely. For many years, he served as a correspondent from Greece for Politika and Sport. He played a crucial role in the return of Serbian Volleyball to international competitions after the sanctions. Speaking with then CEV President Michalis Mastandreas of Greece, he advocated for Yugoslavia’s late inclusion in the qualification process for the 1995 European Championship, hosted by Greece, where Yugoslavia impressed by winning the bronze medal. It marked the beginning of the rise of Serbian volleyball.