Jaroslav Kozák

* 1943

  • "I would really like to devote myself to badminton. If I'm not mistaken, until the sixties, it was a purely recreational sport in Slovakia. That... maybe try to bring us closer to the beginnings of badminton. Maybe not only in Košice, but therefore it was also one of the Slovak championships. Well, badminton came to Czechoslovakia at all, it came from the Moscow Festival of Students and Youth, where our students...where it was performed by the Chinese and Asians. It got to Brno and Prague. In Prague, it became... Do you know in which years? Fifty seven. Fifty seven… In Prague at the Transport University, Slovaks studied...hey, Slovaks also studied in Brno and this badminton got there, well. Both in Prague at Charles University and in Brno, Indonesian players studied and gave it a bit of a foundation. It came to us in Košice in the fifty-ninth year, where a certain student... student, Pišta Maďar, brought a racket and baskets and we started playing in the yard on Halíčková Street. So that was the first time you… Yes, that was the first time we made a playground there...we also played at night. We were so captivated by it. Neighbor Čekan gave us a sodium discharge lamp there...hey, there was no wind, it was a little covered, on three sides, well. At least the residents of the block had some spectacle, hey. Well then... I might ask, sorry. Because it was a brand new sport, the way those neighbors reacted to it... The neighbors responded very well to it. The man, Mr.Žitňa then put the... to make it better light, a sodium discharge lamp in the windows. But in the sixties, we sent registrations to the... Czechoslovak tennis union that we had registered. In the sixty-first year, we held the first Košice championships. It was the director Jakubčin who allowed us to play three times a week in the gym. Reciprocally, we led him in circles for that, hey, like at school. Well, and in the sixties... And in which gym did you actually play? Ferka Urbánka... So there it was. There was a gym. One court, cork floor back then, well. So we had to draw lines."

  • "Then I taught in Ruskov at an elementary school, where really... principal Sinčák created very good conditions for sports. I started teaching three shifts. This means that I started at seven and finished at five, because the school had not yet been built in the first semester. Things got better in the second half of the year because a school was built in Ruskov. That was the sixty-fifth, sixth year? That was the sixty-fifth year. Well, and there were talented children. I remember, I won with my children... because they went from Ruskov to Baňa... on skis and the conditions were tough. I won the regional round... the city round, because Košice city and Košice surroundings were together, the "Friend's Prize", it was a cross-country race. The Košice children had cross-country skis, and our children had ordinary wooden skis tied with laces and were able to beat them. Because they walked from Baňa every day, it was about eight kilometers to school, well. So we won the "Friend Award" twice in a row. It was like that...it was a nationwide race...so of course we didn't have a chance at the national level, because they won it there from Važec and the Tatra region. Then in the 65th it was better, because the director had already bought the cross-country skis, hey...we also received some funds, he got, he got, which had to be spent...for winning the "Friend's Prize", hey in the Košice region, in Košice city. I devoted myself to those children, I devoted my love to sports. Many walkers, many marathon runners came out of there, who achieved decent results in the Košice Marathon in the sixties and seventies. "

  • "But I'll tell you about fifty years ago... when there was a ticket system... when the apartments were precisely mapped, where four of us lived in a two-room apartment and we got one more man... a cave worker, a caver. His name was Mr. Miškov, who went to explore caves in the Slovak Karst, during the week and returned on Saturdays and Sundays. It was done for six days, it was also done on Saturday, but well... we became very good friends with that gentleman and he initiated us into the secrets of the Slovak Paradise... the Slovak Karst. And… Well, it was so that after the war, apartments were calculated per square meter, and when you only had... because it was... because the housing issue was not resolved. And when you only had a meter, two surpluses, the city already had the right to put a person there. Well, then came the change of money, hey...well, somehow, we didn't have that money...so it somehow didn't affect us, but I know that after the mill run, thousands were floating...in the river. Already depreciated... Depreciated...so true. Because there was one, I think ten thousand, they could change one to five and then one to a thousand...yeah, so. Yes. Actually, I just wanted to ask one more question. How did your parents perceive the year forty-eight? Listen, I can hardly say… That they didn't talk about it… The revolution came...they had to adapt to the times. And actually your father still… He worked at the post office. He did, he did at the post office, well...I guess. "

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Tabačka - Košice, 22.06.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:52:40
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Príbehy 20. storočia
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

„The Košice children had cross-country skis and our children had ordinary wooden skis, tied with laces...and they were able to beat them.“

Jaroslav Kozák, a former teacher and professional badminton player, was born on August 29, 1943 in a picturesque house in Betlanovce. Father Pavel Kozák, originally from Liptov, worked as a telegraph construction worker, but due to an accident he was later retrained as a postal clerk with a workplace in Hrabušice. Since Jaroslav came from four siblings, mother Mária, as single Koleščíková, was at home with the children all her life. As a postman, Pavel helped the partisan movement in Spiš. He was aware that the partisans had to live on something, and as a postman he had the opportunity to provide them with finances. He helped especially in the area of ​​the Chočské Mountains, and many others joined later. After the end of the war, Pavel had a clear goal, and that was to ensure a better future for his four children. Therefore, in 1945, he decided to move his entire family to Košice, where especially the older ones, brother Stanko and sisters Božka and Mária, immediately gained access to quality education. In 1949, Jaro started attending elementary school. It was the premises of the current Technical University in Košice, where Ferka Urbánka Elementary School once stood. He was already involved in athletics, handball and ping pong. The next stop in 1957 was the 11th year secondary school on Šrobárová Street, which Jaroslav successfully completed with the matriculation exam. At that time, he mainly devoted himself to athletics and pole vaulting. In the 1960s, he also attended training sessions held at the Lokomotíva stadium. After successfully completing the admission procedure, he became a student of the Faculty of Education at the then Pedagogical Institute in Košice. Since the institute in Košice was later abolished, he had to finish his studies in 1965 at a similar institute in Prešov, combining chemistry with physical education. After completing his studies, Jaroslav got a job as a beginning teacher at an elementary school in Ruskov. As for the mandatory military service, the training started in Sereď and was transferred from there to Mošnov to the airport. He thus became part of the state defense unit, specifically the second air defense regiment, for ten months. After returning home, at the turn of 1966 and 1967, he got a job at a new school, in the Youth Park. He got married in 1973 and had two children. He worked as a teacher in the Youth Park until 1974. For the next four years, he became a part of the Dneperská Elementary School and in 1978 he got the position of deputy director of the Galactic Elementary School. As he grew in his position, it was necessary to become a member of the Communist Party. From 1980, he became the director of the Elementary School on Charkovská Street for twelve long years. Jaro was also an expert in military education, for which he received an award. He also won a gold medal for development in the 1960s. As part of his achievements in badminton, Jaroslav became the Master of Slovakia 20 times and once, in 1975, the Master of Czechoslovakia. The Košice team won more than 10,000 medals for its work at that time. From 1968 to 1974, Jaro was a member of the national team. Jaro managed to travel abroad for the first time thanks to badminton, namely to Budapešť in 1964. Jaro actively played badminton until the age of 55, later he was limited by health problems with the discs, but he is still considered one of the most successful Slovak badminton players. Until recently, he also participated in the International Veterans Championships, or All England Senior Badminton in England, where he won a bronze medal last year.