Ali Uras

Ali Uras — Biography

Ali Uras (8 June 1923, Sinop – 5 May 2012, Istanbul) was a Turkish surgeon and former national basketball player who built parallel careers in medicine and sport. After graduating from Kabataş Boys' High School, he earned his medical degree in 1947 and rose to a professorship in general surgery, founding the Liver-Biliary Tract-Pancreas Surgery Unit at Istanbul University's Istanbul Faculty of Medicine, where he also headed its 2nd Surgical Clinic.

As a basketball player he spent many years with Galatasaray and earned 40 caps for the Turkish national team, competing at the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympics. He later served two terms as Galatasaray's president, from 1979 to 1984 and 1984 to 1986, during which the club won a Turkish Sports Writers Association Cup, two Turkish Cups, a Presidential Cup and a Prime Ministry Cup.

Taking over a club burdened with 35 million lira in debt, Uras relocated its clubhouse to Beyoğlu's Hasnun Galib district and transformed the Florya grounds into a full sports complex with football, volleyball and basketball courts, dormitories and coaching offices, while also overseeing construction of the new swimming pool on Galatasaray Island.