Obituary – Serbia’s Volleyball great Miodrag Mitić

The Volleyball family mourns the death of Dr Miodrag “Miško" Mitić, a renowned doctor, Volleyball coach and delegate, who untimely passed away in the city of Veliko Gradište at the age of 63.

A former Volleyball player, Mitić won a bronze medal with the Yugoslav national team at the 1979 CEV European Championships. He contested the 1981 edition of the continental championship as well, thus finishing his career on 14 EuroVolley matches. Moreover, he played at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, where Yugoslavia finished sixth when they made their maiden Olympic appearance.

His resume includes a gold medal from the 1979 Mediterranean Games, gold at the 1981 Balkan Championship and three silver medals from the 1978, 1980 and 1982 editions of the Balkan Championships.

With the junior national team of Yugoslavia, he finished fifth at the 1977 CEV Junior European Championships, - with his junior career featuring two gold (1975 and 1977) and two silver medals (1976 and 1979) at the Balkan Championships in this age category.

Mitić started his Volleyball career in 1972 in Veliko Gradište with VGSK, the 1980 Yugoslav champions. Many observers still regard this as one of the biggest sensations not only in Volleyball, but also in sports in general, since a club from a small town of only 6,000 inhabitants managed to claim the championship title.

After VGSK, Mitić played for Partizan Belgrade, Crvena Zvezda, Belgium’s Herentals and at the end of his playing career, he returned to VGSK, where he started his coaching career as well. With Partizan Belgrade, he took second place in the Final Tournament of the 1984/1985 CEV Cup, losing only to Italy’s legendary team Panini MODENA. Mitić was the coach of VGSK, with occasional breaks, from 1996 to 2005.

Since 2005, he was a technical delegate supervising matches of the Serbian national league and he was a CEV Supervisor – from 2010 to 2017 – as well.

Dr Mitić graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade and was a renowned physiatrist. He worked at the Health Centre in Veliko Gradište, where he was the director for a while. Mitić was the doctor of the women's senior national team of Serbia at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and his son Mihajlo was a member of the Serbian national team for a number of years. As part of the national team’s staff, Dr Mitić participated also in the 2013 edition of the CEV women’s European Championship in Germany and Switzerland – where Team Serbia finished in fourth place.

The health centre in Veliko Gradište played host to a funeral service held on Thursday, February 10, before his burial followed shortly afterwards at the local cemetery.