Ha year ago just today. Pau Gasol (Barcelona, 1980) put The End to his career as a professional basketball player. I’ve never seen such a movie. What happened on the courts exceeded all his expectations. It was just a full stop. The following chapter keeps him in the foreground, whether it be his activities with the Foundation, his investments, his work in the IOC Athletes Commission… We review his first year after basketball.
Ask. What balance do you make of these 365 days? To the point, please.
Response. A year of transition, a year of reflection, of maturing things. A year of assuming more responsibility and other roles with the Foundation, with the IOC, with the world of sport and the world of investment. A year where I have been able to spend more time with the family, without so much travel, more settled at home. A major change of pace.
Q. Have you missed the game a lot?
R. To some extent yes, but not as much as I expected. That year and a half of injury, operations, recoveries, rehabilitation, and uncertainty because I didn’t really know if I was going to play again at 40 years old, helped me prepare for goodbye. Being able to end up playing for Bara and for the national team gave me a sense of peace and closure that means that even though I miss basketball, something that has contributed so much to your life, you understand that nothing is infinite, things come to an end. I feel grateful to have played for so long.
Fatherhood is what fulfills me the most on a human and personal level. It is incomparable with the rest
Q. When you see successes like the one for the European team, do you get nostalgic?
R. I feel proud because I feel part of those moments even living in the distance, watching it on TV, even if you don’t compete with them. I feel happy. The team, the staff, the Federation… You feel that you have left a grain of sand in the castle so big that we built together. Without being present, I have very nice feelings because I enjoy and am proud of something in which I have participated and that in some way I have been able to contribute to building and influencing the following generations.
P. What new job do you feel most fulfilled about?
R. Fatherhood is what fills me the most on a human and personal level. It is incomparable with the rest. I am a person with concerns, wanting to do things, ambitious, wanting to take advantage of opportunities and set myself challenges. I want to take advantage of the time that is in this world. I diversify a lot. I try to find ways to make an impact with issues that I believe in or have experience in, like sports, health, wellness. That aligned both in the social aspect, as an investor or as an advisor for organizations or companies.
P. Where do you hear more outside the home?
R. One of the things that is most appreciated about me, because of my way of being and thanks to the education of my parents, are the values, the Pau person. I have had experiences and I can contribute some interesting intangibles for people, organizations or companies. In the end, everything in life comes down to values.
Q. After more than a year on the athletes commission, what is your impression? Is there a match for Pau in the IOC?
R. The position I assumed in the Athletes Commission is for a period of two Olympic cycles, seven years in my case due to Covid. I am landing because it is a very large organization, with many aspects, with a large network. It has a lot of arrival and presence. Not everything is reduced to the Games every two years. There is much more. The Olympic movement is making efforts so that the values of Olympic sport are present in society 365 days a year. We have to continue promoting sport in this rapidly changing world, which advances rapidly in matters such as technology that tends to make our lives easier, but at the same time a more passive, more sedentary, less thoughtful life, because the machine already think for you These are things that we have to be very aware of.
I want to empower athletes, enhance their figure, give them more tools to take advantage of each of their stages, the competitive and the post
I am already in the Ethics Commission and in the Coordination Commission of the 28th Los Angeles Olympic Games. I spent four days meeting after meeting, speaking with the organizing committee. I like to have that direct influence on what the LA Games will be, especially giving athletes a voice. I want to empower the athletes, enhance their figure, give them more tools to take advantage of each of their stages, the competitive stage and the post stage, which is also very important. This excites me.
P. Continue to the fullest with the Foundation. Is it the one that satisfies you the most of all its facets?
R. I am proud of the human group apart from the impact, the growth, the specific programs, the studies that we have launched and led, of this National Strategic Plan for the Reduction of Childhood Obesity together with the Government of Spain, which will have an enormous repercussion in the fight so that the childhood obesity curve is reduced in 2030 with a great effort from all. Apart from all this, what makes me most happy is the human team that we have at the Foundation, the people. It is something similar to the basketball team. That connectivity, that humility, that joint work, that passion for what you do takes you much further and gives you an important meaning in your day to day. I am very proud of my team and that is why things work out because we work from that prism.
P. This year you have also changed the parquet with the grass, the ball for the golf clubs. How is that going that started as a bug to play and compete?
A. It’s an anaconda [se re] what I have with the game of the stick and the small balls normally white.
Q. Good colour.
R. I have searched to see if I found them different and better [se re]. It has given me an activity that gives me a way out on an emotional and psychological level that is important at this time in my life. I have the challenge of learning a complex sport in which you can always continue to improve. It also gives me the opportunity to meet other people from very diverse backgrounds, with a lot of diversity, of all ages. Golf is a sport in which you see a child who hits it harder than an old married couple.
Golf gives me a lot of humility, it is a sport in which one day you do well and another day you hit two balls and say ‘earth bring me'”
Q. Does it itch? Being as competitive as it is.
R. Yes, a lot. I am competitive and a perfectionist. I put many hours into it because there is no other way to improve.
Q. Where do you want to go?
R. In October I want to play a ProAm in the United States. Not one of those barbecue ones, a more serious one playing three days and competing. I’ll see. Golf gives me a lot of humility. Because you think you’re doing well and suddenly you hit two balls that you say “earth bring me”. You have to recompose yourself with each shot, continue with the routine.
Q. You are an ambassador for Solheim.
R. I am very involved in golf, I want to support the event, I want to give it sensitivity.
Q. What about the withdrawal of the Lakers jersey, how do you take it?
R. I take it with disbelief. It is something that overwhelms me and surpasses me. I have a hard time imagining it. I was the other day in the pavilion with the Athletes Commission for the Games. He hadn’t been there since the Kobe memorial. I looked up and got goosebumps. It is a moment that is difficult for me to assimilate. It’s going to cost me a lot. I’m going to have to make a containment effort.
That the Lakers withdraw my shirt is something that overwhelms me and surpasses me, I don’t believe it”
P. As weepy as he is…
R. I will have to contain myself. It is a moment that I do not know how to classify.
Q. It seems like the perfect end point for a career.
R. It is a very big recognition of a stage in my career. Joining such a select group of players like Chamberlain, Magic, Jabbar, Kobe, Jerry West… It’s hard to digest.
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