A message of overcoming on Twitter ran as he runs on the court every time he has to enter, today at 35 as from the first day as a professional… when he was only 14 and Boca recruited him from his “almost” native Pergamino. Those 206 characters summed up a life of struggle, a love story and the attitude with which Jonathan Slider, professional basketball player in the National League, he faces each day of his career, a very particular one.
“After 16 years!! I finished high school. I always said it was a promise i made to my mother how to get rid of it. Today I realized that it was a personal pending fee!!! It’s never too late! ???????????????? ”, wrote the escort of Argentino de Junín days ago and that message entered the buzzer to win one of the most important games of his life.
It is that that title that “Jony” obtained has much of its own and family history that is crowned thanks to the key factor of his mother in his lifebut it is also the starting point of his own future and of the one he intends to her children, one of whom she sat with to study, the boy for primary school, the father for secondary school, and to whom today proudly shows his achievement.
The message that Jonatan Slider wrote on Twitter and went viral
You have fans in various parts of Argentina, but there is a particular debate among them regarding where you were born. Those from Bahía Blanca say that you are “theirs” and those from Pergamino too. Where are you from?
– (Laughs) “I was born in Bahia because my father was an athlete like me, he played basketball, he came from the United States like so many other players who come from abroad and he met my mother, who is from Pergamino. I was born in Bahia, as I told you, but at the age of 3 or 4 I settled permanently in Pergamino, where I consider myself from because I have lived practically my entire life there, all my memories are from there”.
You were saying, then, that your dad came from the United States to a Pergamino team and met your mom…
-Yes. He met my mom, Nancy (Ndr: he calls her more by her name than by her relationship), and for various reasons, for work reasons more than anything, my old man went to play in Bahia, where I was born, then he went to play in Comodoro Rivadavia, where my sister, until when I was four or five years old we settled in Pergamino with my mother and my sister, and we began our lives there.
Did you already play basketball?
-I started at five or six in Argentino de Pergamino, my neighborhood club. And quickly, at 14, Boca Juniors recruited me. That was when I had to make the decision to go to Buenos Aires and start my professional career.
And how was that change?
-Crazy. I was only 14 years old, I did not understand what I was living or what I was about to live. I did know that if I didn’t like it, I was going to go back to Pergamino, home, with my friends and my club.
But you stayed…
-Of course. Cause once I met the World Mouth one thing led me to another, there were many guys in the same situation as mine, fighting for a dream in an incredible place and at the age of 15 I was already in the First Division, with the professional team and debuted in the National League. That opened my head, I realized that this was what I wanted to do, beyond the fact that I sacrificed a lot of things.
As which?
-A bit of everything. Because when I was 14 years old I found myself in a city of Buenos Aires where I felt alone, it was a new world, with people I was getting to know and without knowing if it was what I really liked because until that moment I played basketball as a hobby, with my friends and I couldn’t go back to Pergamino for a long time, so I stopped seeing them, my mom, my sister, and I went from playing to being a full-time professional.
Was that when you had to choose between career and study?
-Exact. Because everything started to overlap. I didn’t want to leave but they didn’t give me the times because they played Friday and Sunday, we traveled a lot because in the National League the distances are very long and so from Tuesday to Friday I didn’t go to school and well, I made the decision to sacrifice studying for my career.
Did you regret it?
-Today, with Monday’s newspaper I can say that it went well. I live from what I love, which is playing basketball, but it’s something I don’t know if I would do again. Today I do not recommend it at all. I would have loved to have finished school in a timely manner, to have studied a career so that today I would be more prepared in other areas, but life presented itself to me that way and I think it’s never too late to meet goals or pay off outstanding debts. Today I am proud to have completed that stage that had been pending for several years.
How was that decision?
I dropped out of school at 16. was toss a coin in the air and play it. Although my family always supported me. My mom understood it at the time and I worried about dedicating myself fully to basketball because if not in the first chance I would have to go back to Pergamino.
You played it for basketball and it turned out well thanks to your dedication, the same as now to finish high school and you dedicated the title to your mom. What is Nancy in your life?
-Nancy is a super special person for me. In addition to being my mother, she is the person who always supported me in my decisions, whether or not I agreed with them. She was always behind me He followed me and still follows me. She talks to me all the time and advises me despite the fact that I am already 35 years old, but as if I were the one who arrived in Buenos Aires at 14 and although I make my decisions later, I listen to her a lot because we have experienced many things.
You speak from the absence of your father…
-Okay, yes. My parents separated and my father returned to the United States back in 2001/2002, so we were practically all our lives with Nancy. That’s why we forged a special relationship between the three of us, with my sister too, and we knew that to get ahead we had to be one and for all that it has a special place in my life.
How was that upbringing?
–It was tough. We were the three alone despite our relatives because we had grandparents, my aunt, my cousins… They were an important emotional support, but when we got home the three of us were alone, but the truth is that it must have been harder for her. She worked all day, she was out of the house for a large part of the day out of obligation.
How did they manage?
-My sister would come home from school, I would go to the club to train or play, my sister too, and at 8:30 p.m. my mother would pick us up. We got home and that was it. For a woman it must have been hard, but she could do it and here we are…
Here they are, you and your sister, all professionals and your mom, proud…
-What if. I did my basketball career, and my sister is a doctor, she is a pediatrician here in Pergamino. And Nancy is already a grandmother. She is a great grandmother, too.
And it’s time to study because, as you say, it’s never too late.
-Clear. Finishing high school was a topic that occupied my mind. I didn’t do it for different reasons, either because I lacked papers, because of my work, but there were also some excuses. The fear of sitting down, starting to study after so long, that it wouldn’t work out, not understanding… But with the strict isolation in the pandemic, where yes or yes we had to be inside and all activities were closed, my wife started to tell me that it was time and well, I signed up to study at a distance and that’s where I started.
What was it like to be a high school student again 16 years later?
–Hahaha, very rare. I started with some jobs, to take subjects, in the meantime I went to play in Uruguay and I was there for four months but I continued studying and when I returned to Argentina when the competition resumed and there things got complicated for me because they played in a kind of bubble on consecutive days and there were days when I finished playing at 9pm and had time until 10am the next day to hand in assignments or exams, then I ate with the team and started studying to be back with the team at 11 in the morning.
Where did you study?
-At the Colegio Granaderos in the district of Morón, where they provided me with all the work material, they gave me the opportunity to process my things, to get the papers, the analytical, my previous notes, and that is why I was able to attend and complete my secondary education . The truth is that I am very happy to have closed that circle.
What subjects were the most difficult for you?
-Those in which I had to develop mathematics, physics, chemistry were the ones that cost me the most and the ones I was most afraid of. Once I started an exam I had 40 or 45 minutes to complete it, it was a very short time to solve the problems they gave me and pass it, I’m very happy.
¿Y Nancy?
–I was so happy! Very few people knew that he was in high school. Only the most intimate. My family, the occasional friend, not even the coach of my team because I wanted to be calm. I always said it was a promise to my mom, but over time I realized that it was a challenge for me. She, who insisted that I finish, only wanted the best for me and that is why today I realized that it was something very personal, and is what I want for my children.
You have a 9-year-old boy who is in elementary school and a 10-month-old girl. Did you have to sit down to study with your son? What was he saying to you?
-First I saw myself on the computer studying, writing and I didn’t understand much. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I was studying and he laughed. But we both sat down to do homework and that encouraged him. He began to understand that his father was finishing school after almost 17 years, and clearly tomorrow he will have this example.
You’re going to keep studying?
-The idea is to be able to continue with something. My wife is helping me find a career in the middle of my professional activity. Times are tough and I love what I do, but I also know that there is a life after sports and I am preparing myself for that.
