Gerald Kazanowski of Nanaimo was drafted out of the University of Victoria Vikes but never made the NBA. He did play pro all over the world and in two top-six finishes in the Olympics with Canada at Los Angeles in 1984 and Seoul in 1988.
The current Canadian team headed to the 2024 Paris Olympics will be made up exclusively of high-paid NBA players, but there is still a thing or two they can learn from the old guard such as Kazanowski.
In extraordinary sessions Friday and Saturday, almost every living Canadian men’s basketball Olympian has travelled to Toronto to talk to the current team training there ahead of Paris. There are 47 alumni there for the event.
“It’s remarkable. Guys are dropping what they are doing and flying in from all over the world to do this,” said former Canadian Olympian Howard Kelsey.
“We will talk to the current players about delivering under pressure and what it’s like to play in a medal game,” added Kelsey, who with Kazanowski and former UVic Vikes great Eli Pasquale, did just that at the 1984 L.A. Olympics, in losing by six points to Yugoslavia in the bronze-medal game.
“And we will tell them about the personal sacrifices they will have to make for the good of the unit. This is an NBA-studded team and sacrifices will have to be made.”
Three players from the Canadian teams that made Olympic appearances from 1976 in Montreal to 1988 in Seoul have died. Two were from the Island — star guard Billy Robinson of Chemainus who led Canada to the bronze-medal game at Montreal in 1976 and two-time Olympian and former UVic Vikes legend Pasquale.
The other is the late Greg Francis. Also deceased are legendary former Victoria players Doug Peden and Art and Chuck Chapman, who led Canada to its only basketball medal with silver at Berlin in 1936.
Almost all the living Olympians are in Toronto this weekend to inspire the current national team headed to Paris. Steve Nash of Victoria, who captained Canada in 2000 at Sydney the last time the men’s national team qualified for the Olympics, is one of only four living alumni unable to attend the function, which has been organized by the National Basketball Teams Alumni Association.
A similar alumni inspirational session is planned in Victoria for the Canadian women’s basketball team, which is conducting its pre-Olympic training camp here before departing for Paris.
Meanwhile, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their Olympic appearance at Los Angeles in 1984, a group of 20 Canadian female rowing alumni travelled from around the world to Duncan this month to talk to the Paris-bound current team training on Quamichan Lake.
“I think they appreciated the gesture,” said 1984 Olympian Joanie Storm of Victoria.
Storm said her advice was simple: “Pull hard and listen to your coxswain.”
