MILORAD ERKIC

Milorad Erkic was born on July 17, 1932 in Kragujevac. In 1951, he enrolled at Belgrade Law Faculty. On August 1, 1952, he came to BSK, and remained in the club, as a player and later as a member of the management board until his last days. He was one of the pillars of the OKK Belgrade championship team. Quiet, modest, without great pretensions, stable and firm, always reliable, Erkic was the biggest competitor in the team, the one to give the impulse when it was most needed. When all the others were dispirited and had already “lowered their weapons”, Erkic would come on the scene, in an unsparing manner, imploring his energy and fighting for every ball on the court. In those moments, his vigour and desire to win would pull the whole team. Inspired by Erkic’s example, Korac, Nikolic, Gordic and the others would again gain their self-confidence, concentrate on the game and turn that what was already a loss into a victory.

Erkic was a member of the team for 13 years. Not once, as he himself said, did it occur to him to change the club despite the offers. He loved OKK Belgrade in the most sincere way. He went through the club’s whole development path, from the small trade union basketball club which played on the fields in Serbia’s provinces, till the multiple state champion and winner of the Cup, a club of the European sizes which was winning and was respected in the capitals of Italy, France, and Belgium. Although he was a member of Serbian and Belgrade team selections, he never played for the national team, which remained his only unfulfilled sports wish. He finished his career as a player on March 21, 1965, after the OKK Belgrade’s match against Real Madrid at Belgrade Fair’s Hall II. Immediately upon finishing his playing career, besides his full-time job of the organisational manager at the Belgrade Fair, Erkic remained in the club as women and men’s junior teams’ coach until 1967, when he became a technical director of men’s first team. He stayed on that position until the beginning of the 90s. Together with his best-man, associate and friend Miordrag Trgovcevic – Sema, he was most deserving for the preservation of the values from the club’s championship period.

Milorad Erkic worked as a coordinator of youth teams in the club. He passed away on August 10, 2009 in Belgrade.