LAPPEENRANTA. From the edge of the summer theatre’s stand, there is a vague rumble and rustle. Two figures contort their faces into the most peculiar expressions, support their lower stomachs with their hands and grunt as if trying to make noise with their stomachs.
It wouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind to associate the sight with the Finnish national basketball team, but I think this is Susijeng’s head coach Lassi Tuovi that other home field. Tuovi is currently acting there Lasse Karkjärvi with voice opening exercises, so that the players in the upcoming European basketball championships could hear the instructions in the final moments of even the hottest battles.
– Childhood has come to be spent in these landscapes. Father was the director of the youth theater and ran the summer theater during the summers. Instead of the ball fields, I spent my summers there doing things and watching shows. Quite a lot of lines would probably still be memorized, Tuovi laughs.
Small coincidences and brave leaps are the reason why Tuovi didn’t stay in the theater world and basketball was just a side plot in this story. Back at the turn of the millennium, he appeared as a young Elmo in a successful summer theater play in Lappeenranta.
– I guess it was the last summer, after which basketball started to take more. Elmo was indeed a sweet experience. We had two thousand viewers at our best. It was a big show with professional actors.
While talking with Karkjärvi, the basketball coach and the actor find a lot of common ground in basketball and theater. Both are live broadcasts where you have to react quickly to changing situations. In addition, both are team sports, where you can’t do without interaction.
– Maybe that’s why Elmo has embarked on his own journey to learn how, for example, group dynamics have been built in such an environment, Tuovi reflects.
As a young boy, Lassi Tuovi watched from a close distance how the director father Pekka Tuovi cast actors. It has also become one of the strengths of the young head coach.
– I think the biggest similarity between theater and basketball is that role-playing is very important in both. A good actor in the wrong role is not good for the show. The theater experience gained through my father helped me understand that we are each our own kind of artists, we just have to bring out those strengths.
Boldly after opportunities
Lassi Tuovi has been such a familiar name to the Finnish basketball community for more than a decade that it seems unbelievable to think that he is actually piloting Susijeng, the flagship of Finnish basketball, and he is still only 35 years old.
The most age has been a matter of wonder throughout his coaching career, because he was hired for the first Korisliiga head coaching job here in Lappeenranta more than ten years ago, at only 24 years old.
My playing career ended early with a knee injury, but after the decision to quit, the basketball flame burned so strongly that club work took it with it.
– It is always the first thing to say that Finnish basketball did not lose much in that decision to stop, Tuovi begins with a laugh.
Needless to say, on the contrary. The golden years of Finnish basketball began with that decision. Tuovi roamed the hall, announced Lappeenranta Namika’s matches and grabbed everything that needed a creator.
– I didn’t care what the title was or what job was available. I drove in coaching and did everything the club needed. The first coaching task was supposed to be to spy on Honga’s activities in Espoo, and I couldn’t even think about what to do with it. I was just ready to help and that same passion has remained here over the years, Tuovi says.
Spying on the opponent quickly changed to the role of assistant coach, then head coach. In Lappeenranta, championships, medals and Finnish Cup victories were celebrated. In the city, life was a basket case.
– It was luck that I was able to join the coaching work during Namika’s successful years. It was possible to correct it a little through elite sports. I also coached young people, but in the league team I quickly got to see what is required at the absolute top in Finland. The standards of top sports and the right kind of learning at the beginning of a career immediately came into play, Tuovi recalls.
Suddenly, an invitation came from somewhere to help the national team, and one morning Tuovi found himself coaching as a professional in the top leagues abroad. Lappeenranta had changed to Istanbul.
– I still remember the park bench I sat on during the top coaching exam in 2010. Henrik Dettmann walked past it and, passing by, exclaimed that he should go do overdue tasks according to the men’s national team. The video coach had just finished and now we needed Jesus for the camp for two weeks. Fortunately, it wasn’t written, it dragged on a bit, Tuovi laughs.
The most important tip for young players and coaches is that you should boldly jump after opportunities.
– You shouldn’t settle for what you are expected to do or what you are expected to be. Of course, you have to go to school and live the normal path when you’re young, but when I got opportunities myself, other things shifted.
In Henrik Dettmann’s “basketball college”, Tuovi learned things that cannot be learned by reading.
– You can’t know what it’s like to be in the screaming storm of Istanbul until you’ve experienced it yourself. Or what happens in the corridors and dressing rooms after you lose in the fifth final for the fifth time in a row in Strasbourg. You can’t get those experiences from the library, says Tuovi.
Lappeenrantaism can be heard in Tuov’s speeches as modesty and humility. He gives ample praise to those who have also shown courage and given the young coach the opportunity to learn.
– It has been very important that I have had the right people around me. Raised and trained by people who saw the potential of a young boy. Of course, you must also remember to value your own work and the amount that has been done for this. It doesn’t matter if you are a young coach or the head coach of the national team, you should do things to the fullest.
Trust is earned
After the summer theater, it’s time to move to Lassi Tuov’s second home field. When Kimpinen enters the field, Susijeng’s head coach immediately receives greetings from old acquaintances.
– All kinds of sports have been played here in the past. The best games have probably been played here in the past. It’s nice to see that there are still enough players, even though these players are no longer very young, Tuovi says and at the same time jokes with his former player, who has come to play on the field.
Head coaches are often seen as authorities who have built up their reputation over the decades. The page follower might be surprised how Lassi Tuovi, as a really young coach, has gotten the European superstars of the sport to commit to working together and succeeding.
– I claim that I have only managed to sell well my own enthusiasm and my professional skills at the time. The same values have been in my coaching from the beginning, Tuovi begins.
Tuovi says that he believes in a combination of openness and courage. He looks the player in the eyes and admits that he hasn’t made all the mistakes or understands every thing yet, but he tries to make the best possible solutions for him and help to the best of his ability.
Even mistakes are made together, and it takes courage not to overthink things.
Lassi Tuovi
– One of my strengths has certainly been my social abilities, thanks to which I have managed to work with different people. I have been able to create a personal relationship of trust with the players before thinking about other things around, Tuovi describes.
Instead of success, medals or even winning individual matches, the words learning and experiencing are repeated in Tuov’s speeches.
– Above all, I would like to be the kind of coach who can move the players forward and the players get something to take with them on the path of life. When this happens, basketball usually goes well on that side as well. In the end, this job is all about how you work with people, how you value and treat them.
And a lot of players have already passed through Tuov’s hands.
– Now last fall, for the first time, such a dramatic situation happened that when a new junior player joined the team, it had to be stated that I have coached his father. That it’s been years here, Tuovi laughs.
Just one part of the continuum
Before the end of the interview, Lassi Tuovi still wants to visit the cemetery to say hello to the man without whom the story would not be at this point.
The longtime head coach and background figure of Namika from Lappeenranta, who passed away at the turn of the year after a long illness Mika Turunen was the first brave person who saw a future in Tuovi.
– Mika had a huge impact on Lappeenranta basketball as a whole, but I myself was able to be in the right place at the right time, thanks Tuovi.
Turunen noticed the potential in the 17-year-old young boy, quickly gave him responsibility and perhaps burdened him a little with everything possible that can be done in a basketball club.
– Not many people get the opportunity to catch top sports at high school age. Mika is the person who really pushed me to this basketball path, says Tuovi as he places a bouquet of flowers at the foot of the gravestone.
After Turunen, Tuovi was able to follow closely first Jarmo Laitinen to do at LrNMKY and as head coach Laitinen boldly delegates coaching responsibility to his young assistant coach. During those coaching years, that fateful encounter with Henrik Dettmann on a park bench also happened.
In terms of the young coach’s self-confidence, meeting the famous French coach was also a big moment By Vincent Collett as assistant coach to Strasbourg and eventually take his place as head coach.
– At first, there was a lot of uncertainty about how things would work out abroad. You noticed that we are talking here and see things much the same way. I realized a lot of things, which I have been aware of and realized, but which perhaps I hadn’t fully internalized yet until an experienced coach said them, Tuovi times.
Now Tuovi is standing behind the Suomen Susijeng bench without his mentors and considers it a great honor.
– On the other hand, I see that this is just a kind of continuation of the work that has been done for a long time. I myself can now be a part of it and stand out a little more, but the basic work remains the same. It’s a great honor to be able to do this with such a team, Miko (Larkas) and sport icons Hanno (Möttölä) and Teemu (Rannikko), says Tuovi.