Basketball appeared in Plunge in 1964. The first group of basketballplayers didn’t achieve any great victories. But still they were thefoundators of basketball in our town. The leaders of the team in that timewere Salys, Vosylius, Kiudulas and Leliūga. Salys had a good opportunity tojoin the national basketball team. The next generation of players had much more success. They had won thesecond place of the LKL championship for several times. From the verybeginning their trainer was G.Glikmanas ant the second trainer wasAugenijus Jurgutis. The most distinguished players at that time wereMidaugas Pranskevičius, Augenijus Vaškys, Dainius Miliūnas, Evaldas Jocys,Arūnas Drąsutis, Tomas Venckūnas; Martynas Slivskis all these players werefrom Plunge. But there were a lot of players from other towns and evenother countries: Dainius Staugaitis from Mažeikiai, Igors Miglinieks fromLatvia, Nerijus Zabarauskas Jonava, and Ramūnas Petraitis Kaunas. From 1985 till 1993 they took part in LBC. At the beginning the nameof the team was Linų Audiniai and later it was changed to Olimpas. 1996 thename of the team was again changed in to Zemaitijos Lokiai. And half of theplays were staged in Plunge and other half in Mažeikiai. From 1998 Plungehas no team taking part in LKL championship. Players from Olimpas now areplaying in other teams like: Augenijus Vaškys and Midaugas Pranskevičiusare playing in Poland, Dainius Miliūnas plays in Klaipėda, Evaldas JocysRamūnas Petraitis and Arūnas Drąsutis are playing in the USA studentsleague. Plungės Olimpas had a lot of trainers like: Genadijus Glikmanas,Hendrikas Giedraitis, and Rimas Endrijaitis. All these years the presidentof the team was Vitas Klimas. Plunges Olimpas played in European cups. Twoyears they played in Krachas cup and one year in Saportos cup. The main
sponsors of our team were Litoda and Mažeikių Nafta. From 1994 till 1999 Plunge had another team that took part in theLKaL championship. The primal name was ŽŪM and after some years it waschanged into Olimpas2. The best players of this team were Alvydas Žukauskas now he is playingin Mažeikių Nafta team, Alvydas Jocys now he is in the USA, RemigijusKasperavičius now he is playing in Klaipėdos Universitetas Laivytė team andSigitas Kažukauskas now he is playing in Marijampole team. The highestaward reached by this team was the 4th place in the LKaL. This team had alot of trainers too they were Steponas Milašius, Valdas Šimkus andGenadijus Glikmanas. The main sponsor of this team was Žemaitijos Olimpas.In the present time Plunge has no team in the LKaL nor in LKL. But has ateam in the LKbL. The team was formatted from the sports school players.The trainers of this team are Vaitkevičius and Glikmanas. Now this team isin the last place of the LKbL championship with only one win this year. Thebudget of this team is only 700LT this year and all the money is disjointedfor the trips. In the 80’s there was a women team in our town. The official name ofthis team was Plunges Odininkas. For some time this team was also trainedby G.Glikmanas. Some players from that time are now working as trainers atthe sports school. Plunge has also two teams of young basketballers playing in Karunachampionship. The age is 11-13 years. These boys are playing very well and they arestanding in the leading positions in their championships. The boys who were born in 1984 now are playing in the first league oftheir old boys. And they are standing in the 5th place out of 8 teams. Theboys who were born in 1982 are playing in the second league right, but thisyear they will go to the first league very easy I think. The boys who wereborn in 1983 this summer will play in the YOUTH GAMES. And their plans areto be in the top 5 in Lithuania. Every year our district is having a nice basketball championship. Alot of teams are taking part in it. Last year there were 16 teams. Lastyear there were tow championships because the teams, which suffered thedefeat, wanted to make the rematch and organized a new tournament. Whichwas named the Revenge CUP. There are 7 basketball trainers in Plunge they are training 10 groupsof young people.———————–[pic]