SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO.- The fifth and decisive point of the final series of the National Basketball League is disputed. Nervousness, parity until the last seconds. The definition is vibrant. in the bank of Cordoba Institute, as part of the coaching staff, a woman is seen. Live the game your way, with great intensity. To stop. He sits. Walk. Chat with the players. Go back to your place. He crosses his arms in some advances of his rival, Quimsa. At the end of the game, everything is joy for La Gloria, who won in a third-party rodeo and became champion of Argentine basketball.
Florencia Infante is 30 years old, He came to the Alta Córdoba club from the hand of the president, Juan Manuel Cavagliatto, just over a year ago as a specialist in emotional and mental sports coaching for a team that went through bad situations, but is now celebrating the title. The second sporting achievement since Florencia has been in that function. She joins that celebration because she is one more. She grabs the Cup, takes photos, greets the players, the coaching staff and their families. She feels great satisfaction.
Floencia Infante, top right, with the group of champion players of the National Basketball League (Matias Garcia / Liga Nacional/)
But the cruel comes from outside. Is that, Florencia is designated as “the witch” that Instituto has on the substitute bench: “I think I have never been treated as unfairly as today, I was doing my job and people yelled at me ‘witch! witch!’. I wish I were a witch, we would have won by 20 ″, she says between laughs and with a recognizable Santiago tune, because he was not a prophet in his land, he had to go elsewhere in search of his dream. She got it and today she can say that she is also a champion by dint of hard work. Cavagliatto, head of the Cordovan entity, hugs her and jokes about the situation: “Make notes for her, she has two out of two in her titles. We are going to send it to Scaloni for the World Cup”.
Who is Florence Infante?
“I am a coach. We work in emotional and mental sports coaching. On the other hand, I started my career as a Pranic Healer, which is an energetic technique to heal physically, emotionally and mentally”, says Infante, born in Santiago, about their role in the team and about their task. “I have discovered the sport within pranic healing because in Santiago del Estero there are many clubs that play soccer or basketball in the first division and the boys arrived due to injuries, but a large number of those injuries have to do with the emotional. So I faced pranic healing in the sports field from recovering them from the injury on a physical level and on an emotional level”.
To her explanation, Florencia adds many more concepts: “In pranic healing we work on the entire energy level, energy or bioplasmic field, according to science, and we call each of the energy points chakras. So, by cleansing and energizing the chakras, the body enters a recovery process… That’s all the magic I do, and witchcraft, according to people.” expresses himself between laughs.
Juan Manuel Cavagliatto, president of the Institute (with gray sweatshirt): both posing with the champion’s cup
Her path was not easy and remembering it moves her: “I left Santiago del Estero on March 3, 2021 with my suitcase full of clothes. I tell it and it moves me”. Her sparkling eyes and her voice on the verge of breaking confirm it. “I went to Córdoba, with my resume, without any contact, without anything. It was courage and bravery on my part to leave my city because here I have not had opportunities, because here they have not considered me to be part of the coaching staff, which was my dream. So, I arrived at the Institute on June 4 of last year. Juan Manuel Cavagliatto, who is the president of the club, opened the doors for me, he has sat down to listen to me to see my proposal and ask me what is all this new. The team was not going through a good time and he told me that he believed it was what they needed, that I was going to add a lot”. About Cavagliatto, the club’s starter, she only has words of gratitude: “Energy is important and so is the emotional health of my players. So, he has given me this great opportunity.” And she even allows herself to play with words: “I am not going to tell him that he is an angel, because he told me that he is a devil”, she contributes between smiles.
For Instituto, despite being the new champion, The season has been very difficult. He went through moments of injuries, casualties due to Covid and absences that did not allow him to always play with the full team. Florencia gave some details of how she was and how she worked in those situations. “Many things happened. A month before the playoffs started we were in 11th place and today we are champions. I think these guys earned it all honestly, by working, and coming out of their injuries and personal issues. Here there are guys who have really had a very bad time and today they are happy. For me this is a gift. Celebrate in my city with my mom and my sister by my side (she gets excited)… This was unthinkable 10 months ago and a month ago too, and I owe everything to Juan and also to the coaching staff. Because adding one more person to that work group that was already set up, I knew it was going to be difficult, but they are all generous, such good people, that they always let me work freely and be able to contribute my grain of sand”, says Florencia. And she adds: “Here nothing was by chance, everything was teamwork. And to all the people who tell me witch and others, I tell them that I wish they were in my shoes at least for a minute”.
Infante, arms crossed, on the substitutes bench at Instituto during the fifth game of the final series against Quimsa in which the Córdoba team became champion (National Basketball League/)
He recounts his role as coach with passion: “This was with all the players and coaching staff, we did a great energetic job. I met many people from the club who approached me lovingly and I have been able to help them in their lives and for me it is invaluable to have touched a little piece of the life of each one and their family, because the family is also included in this achievement. For example, with the girlfriends of the players. I congratulated them for having banked every day from home. That is also part of the job”, he says.
But not everything was rosy for Florence, that unfortunately He had to endure injustice and a lot of disrespect: “During the season I have had to go through a lot of things simply because I am a woman. It happened to me that they classified me as prohibited, that they kicked me out of the substitute benches, that they didn’t let me enter the stadiums, insults… Every club knows who I’m talking about”. And she remembers: “I told a person to memorize my face because nobody takes me out if I don’t want to leave and that will always be the case because this is my dream and I deserve respect. I’m not a witch because if we hadn’t swept Quimsa out of the series, that it is a difficult team, very talented, individually very virtuous. They also did a phenomenal job”, he insists on their function and what they call it.
Today Florence celebrates. She also already observes the horizon of her work at the Institute: “Personally, I feel that I finished a year with a lot of things that have made me stronger. From now on we have international cups and the demand says that we have to continue working harder and I will be here to continue accompanying whatever comes. But I think today we are the most resilient, bravest and courageous team. That is on display because raising the cup is the ultimate gift,” she concludes.
Florencia together with the entire coaching staff of Instituto (National Basketball League/)
