The former national player discovered Nowitzki in Schweinfurt in 1995. Holger Geschwindner became German champion three times with MTV Gießen.
In mid-October, when the forefathers of MTV 1846 Gießen remembered their successes, this air of the unpredictable, the mysterious, the imponderable wafted through Gießen again. Is he coming? Or is he not coming? Of course, he had had an invitation for the anniversary weekend for weeks. And also announced over the phone that we would return to where it all began.
But Holger Geschwindner didn’t show up on Friday. As the hard core of revelers enjoyed Hessian home cooking in the traditional Hawwerkasten restaurant on Saturday lunchtime, the heavy entrance door suddenly opened and a senior citizen in a lumberjack shirt entered the restaurant. To see friends again. To revive old stories. But also to document: He hasn’t forgotten the men’s gymnastics club, which has long been called the Gießen 46ers; he has a lot to thank them for.
Which also applies to basketball superstar Dirk Nowitzki in relation to Holger Geschwindner. He is his “mentor, manager, friend, private teacher, sometimes even my second father,” says the now 47-year-old, who played for the Dallas Mavericks for 20 years and became NBA champion with the Texans in 2011, in a “Spiegel” interview. It is the story of a male friendship, a path to success, even a fairy tale that somehow begins in Central Hesse.
In Laubach, Holger Geschwindner, who was born in Bad Nauheim, attended the Graf Friedrich Magnus Alumnat, where he also completed his first dribbling. After graduating from high school and serving in the Bundeswehr, he moved to MTV 1846 Gießen, with whom he became German champion three times (1965, 1967, 1968) and cup winner in 1969. At the same time, he studied mathematics and physics. In 1971 he went to Munich and conducted research at the Max Planck Institute. At his later clubs in Bamberg, Göttingen and Cologne he was always guaranteed enough freedom to be able to pursue his research assignments at the same time.
In 1995, Holger Geschwindner, who made 150 international and 600 Bundesliga appearances during his playing days, played with his old team in Schweinfurt. Because the seniors are in the hall a little earlier than planned, they watch a youth game, “in which a tall, thin guy who had no technical tools at all did everything right that makes a good basketball player,” remembers Holger Geschwindner.
The oldie offers the youngster to support him, encourage him, and develop him. And just three weeks later, the ex-national player is sitting at home in the living room of the future international in Würzburg and drinking coffee with his dad, mom and sister. A liaison that is probably unique in sport is sealed…
“Holger was always a little different than everyone else,” Dirk Nowitzki once said in a Deutschlandfunk interview. “His approaches were different, somehow not normal.” But they helped the rascal from Würzburg achieve world fame, records and awards that would go beyond the scope of listing them. And a considerable fortune. In 2012, Geschwindner published a book about his protégé: “Nowitzki. The Story.”
Today, Tuesday, Holger Geschwindner turns 80 years old. The Gießen 46ers proudly say: congratulations. (pm)
