Stylianos "Steve" Giatzoglou (alternate spellings: Yatzoglou, Yantzoglou; Greek: Στυλιανός "Στηβ" Γιατζόγλου; born 11 December 1949), is a Greek American professional basketball coach, and the president of the Union of Greek Basketball Athletes. He's also a former basketball player, having competed professionally in the Greek Basket League. During his playing career, his nickname was "The Lion".[1]
College career
Under the name Steve Young, Giatzoglou played college basketball at the University of Connecticut, where he played with the school's men's team, the UConn Huskies.
Professional career
After college, Giatzoglou began his professional club career in Lebanon. Giatzoglou's pro career was mainly noted for his successes with the Greek Basket League club Olympiacos Piraeus. He's considered today as one of the greatest players in the club's history. With Olympiacos, he won 2 Greek League championships and 4 Greek Cups. He was the Greek Cup Finals Top Scorer in 1977, 1978, 1979, and 1980. He also played with the Greek club PAOK Thessaloniki.
In the top-tier level Greek Basketball Championship, he scored a total of 6,044 points, which is the 10th most total points scored in the competition, since the 1963–64 season.[2]
National team career
Giatzoglou made his debut with the senior Greek national team, on 6 May 1973. With Greece's senior national team, he had a total of 115 caps, in which he scored a total of 1,468 points,[3] for a scoring average of 12.8 points per game.
Giatzoglou played in three FIBA EuroBasket tournaments with Greece's national team. He played at the 1973 EuroBasket, the 1975 EuroBasket, and the 1979 EuroBasket. His last game with the Greek national team was on 18 February 1981, in a friendly game against the Bulgarian national team.
Coaching career
As a basketball head coach, Giatzoglou worked in several clubs in Greece, including: Olympiacos Piraeus, Sporting Athens, Iraklis Thessaloniki, Aris Thessaloniki, AEK Athens, Pagrati Athens, Peristeri Athens, Gymnastikos S. Larissas, Aigaleo Athens, and Kavala. In 2014, Giatzoglou was hired as an assistant coach to work in South Korea, with the Goyang Orions of the Korean Basketball League.[4] In 2015, Giatzoglou returned to Greece to coach Kavala.[5][6]
Personal life
In October 2016, Giatzoglou endorsed the Neo-Nazi[8] political party Golden Dawn, and attended the celebration of their newspaper's 1,000th issue.[9] In 2020, he joined the Greek nationalist party Greeks for the Fatherland, as a party executive.[10]
