Ali Farokhmanesh


Ali Fredrick Farokhmanesh is an American former professional basketball player and current Colorado State Rams men's basketball assistant coach. Farokhmanesh gained nationwide fame in the 2010 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament as a member of the Northern Iowa Panthers men's basketball team, when he hit a crucial 3-point shot that helped UNI upset top overall seed Kansas in the second round. His heroics, which came two days after hitting the game-winning three-point shot against UNLV in the first round of the tournament, led to an appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Personal life

Farokhmanesh was born in Pullman, Washington, where he attended high school at Pullman High School for two years before moving to Iowa and attending West High School in Iowa City, Iowa. He then attended junior college at Indian Hills Community College and Kirkwood Community College before transferring to the University of Northern Iowa. In 2014, he stopped playing professionally, when he became an assistant coach for Nebraska Cornhuskers. Farokhmanesh is of mixed European and Iranian descent. His father, Mashallah, was born in Borujerd and was a member of the Iranian men's national volleyball team, before immigrating to the United States in 1977, where he played for professional teams and eventually became a coach. Mashallah married Ali's mother, Cindy Fredrick, who has been the head coach for the women's volleyball team at the University of Iowa since 2004. Before moving to Iowa, Fredrick was the head coach of the Washington State University's women's volleyball team for 15 years, where she had a record of 278 wins and 192 losses. Cindy and her husband briefly coached at small Luther College. Cindy and Mashallah now both coach the UNLV women's volleyball team as head coach and assistant coach, respectively. In 2014, Farokhmanesh married the former Mallory Husz. They have three children.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA tournament and all NCAA-sponsored spring sports and also led to most U.S. universities going to online-only instruction, the Farokhmanesh family "re-created" his famous NCAA tournament shot in an empty Moby Arena on the 10th anniversary of the UNI–Kansas game. The shot was captured for a Web video that Colorado State posted on its official athletics Twitter account.

Career

After going undrafted in the 2010 NBA Draft, Farokhmanesh signed a deal to play for SAM Massagno Basket, an LNB Division A team based in Massagno, Switzerland.
In 2011, Farokhmanesh signed with the Austrian team WBC Raiffeisen Wels. His contract was renewed in June 2012. Farokhmanesh averaged 13.7 points per game in Austria.
On August 14, 2013 he signed with SPM Shoeters Den Bosch in the Netherlands. In April, Farokhmanesh won the DBL Sixth Man of the Year award.
In 2014, he stopped playing professionally, when he became a graduate assistant at Nebraska. In 2016, head coach Tim Miles promoted Farokhmanesh to director of player relations and development. On April 28, 2017, Farokhmanesh joined the Drake men's basketball program as an assistant coach for Niko Medved.
On March 26, 2018, Farokhmanesh followed head coach Niko Medved and became an assistant under Medved at Colorado State University.

Honors

SPM Shoeters Den Bosch
Regular season