Geschwindner taking a jump shot for the West German national team during the 1972 Summer Olympics Holger Geschwindner (born 12 September 1945 in

Bad Nauheim Bad Nauheim () is a town in the Wetteraukreis district of Hesse state of Germany. As of 2020, Bad Nauheim has a population of 32,493. The town is approximately north of Frankfurt am Main, on the east edge of the Taunus mountain range. It is a w ...

Hessen Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major historic cities are Da ...

) is a German former professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

player. He is known as the long-time coach and mentor of ex-

Dallas Mavericks The Dallas Mavericks (often referred to as the Mavs) are an American professional basketball team based in Dallas. The Mavericks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Southwest Division (NBA), Southwest Divisi ...

player

Dirk Nowitzki Dirk Werner Nowitzki (; born June 19, 1978) is a German former professional basketball player who is a special advisor for the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Listed at , he is widely regarded as one of the great ...

. Geschwindner first met Nowitzki when the future basketball superstar was 16 years old. Geschwindner acted as an official coach of the Dallas Mavericks and runs a basketball academy in

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

, Germany, that he calls the Institute of Applied Nonsense. In 1995, Geschwindner calculated the optimum angle of a jump shot to be 60 degrees.

Early life

A native of

, Geschwindner is alleged to have learned basketball as a young boy from an American soldier stationed in Germany.

References

* * * 1945 births Living people Sportspeople from Bad Nauheim Basketball players at the 1972 Summer Olympics BSC Saturn Köln players German men's basketball players Olympic basketball players for West Germany 20th-century German sportsmen {{Germany-basketball-bio-stub