He was the golden hand of basketball. They wanted to go out into the world, that’s what drove them forward.
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Kamil Brabenec was born on 4 February 1951 in Znojmo. He lived with his father and mother in Jihlava until he was ten years old, he had two siblings - a brother and a sister. In 1961 the family moved to Ústí nad Labem. Kamil Brabenec started playing hockey there, but due to heart problems he had to have an operation and was not allowed to play sports for a year. From the end of elementary school he played basketball, then graduated from a chemical apprenticeship. In Ústí nad Labem, he played in the youth league, shooting the basketball alone for up to six hours a day. He went to the army at the age of 19 to RH Pardubice, where he played in the national first league. He was on the junior national team and in 1971 coach Nikolaj Ordnung nominated him for the European Championship in Germany, where he and his team won fifth place. A year later, he made it to the Summer Olympics in Munich, where Czechoslovakia finished eighth. After the war, he moved to Zbrojovka Brno, where he won six national championship titles. He married and started a family in Brno. In 1976 he was sixth with the Czechoslovak team at the Summer Olympics in Montreal, and a year later he won bronze at the European Championships in Liege, Belgium. He repeated the same success with the team in 1981. A year earlier, he made it to the Summer Olympics for the third time in a row, with Czechoslovakia finishing ninth in Moscow. After the 1981 European Championships, he dropped out of the national team for two years due to a customs violation. He had taken scarce cameras and electronics to Czechoslovakia from a trip from Japan to friends, which was not allowed at the time, and was discovered by customs officials. He lost his passport for two years and was given probation in court. He returned to the national team and achieved his greatest success in 1985, leading the team to silver medals at the European Championships in Germany as its top scorer. He finished his national team career with an eighth place finish at the European Championships in Greece. From 1989 to 1991 he played for Debrecen, Hungary. In the Czechoslovak league he became the second most successful scorer in history with 10,726 points. He finished second in the poll for the best Czech volleyball player of the 20th century. After finishing his playing career, he devoted himself to coaching. His daughter Andrea (born in 1974) played for the Czech national basketball team, and his son Kamil (born in 1976) was an extra-league hockey player. In 2021 Kamil Brabenec Sr. lived in Brno.
