Moving up with DJK Würzburg

On June 16, 2023, Dirk Nowitzki was a guest at the Top Arbeitgeber Congress in Mainz.

I had the honor of creating a painting for Nowitzki as a guest gift.

Since Nowitzki did his compulsory military service in Mainz until June 1998, I wanted to bring together all his sporting successes from 1998 in the painting.

And here is the story from April 5, 1998:

Moving up with DJK Würzburg to the 1st Basketball Bundesliga.

But at the beginning of the season, it did not yet look like Würzburg would be promoted.

After a defeat at the end of 1997 against Lich, doubters of the Franconians' promotion ambitions grew louder.

The team around 19-year-old Dirk Nowitzki, 20-year-old Robert Garrett from Ochsenfurt and Demond Greene from Aschaffenburg, who is only 18, also reacted.

After the promotion already failed in the past two years, they brought the experienced Ivo Nakic into the team for the second half of the season.

And the plan worked.

The Würzburg team won the cup and the championship in the southern division of the 2nd league with unprecedented aplomb.

In the promotion round, the X-Rays then played together with the second-last and last-place team in the Bundesliga for the ticket to the top German league in the coming season.

On the penultimate matchday, the Würzburg team finally clinched promotion with a 91-86 victory over first-division team USC Freiburg. 

On this historic day, the fans gave the players a first goosebump moment as they entered the Carl-Diem Arena, which was packed with 3350 fans.

For the day, the Main Post newspaper printed a special edition with the inscription:

"1st division - we're in it!"