Encarna Hernández (Lorca 1917- Barcelona 2022) passed away this Monday at the age of 105 and the universal recognition of being the mother of Spanish women’s basketball, a woman who awakened and kept alive the flame of the basketball in her heart and on the courts until who got pregnant and decided to stop dribbling the ball. And although she remained anonymous for many years, chance made a journalist who lived near her house in the Eixample -where she had a veritable sanctuary and museum of press clippings and photographs- meet her in 2013 and end up giving light, color and shapes a life dedicated to the basket like no other, finally captured in a documentary by the production company Ochichornia that brought his life to the big screen with the documentary The Girl with the Hook (2016, Film).
Although he was born in Lorca (Murcia), his parents -Andrés and Pascuala- decided to pack their bags in 1929 together with their 12 children to live in Barcelona. There, from the balcony of her house, she saw how some boys from the neighborhood -one of them ended up being her husband- had rented a track to fix it with a fence and some baskets. She then germinated her passion thanks to the acquiescence of her father, who had previously encouraged her to try rollerblading, cycling, swimming and rhythmic gymnastics. “He was modern and liberal and he allowed me to play because I wanted to be an athlete. Sport is life and health, it evades you from bad things. I am air, water and sun. Sport gave me that”, recalled Encarna a few years ago.
A few days later, she signed up with her sister Maruja and other friends to dribble the ball and shoot it. And since she was short (1.57 meters) but ingenious, she was encouraged to polish the hook. “They called me La Niña del Gancho because she did them with great elegance and almost none failed. She didn’t do it in any way, you have to know and have taste and class for it. She would jump, throw over her head and tac… basket. What times those were!” Encarna explained with pride, almost as much because of the recognition that came to him over time. But for that she rained a lot.
In 1931 the Atlas Club was founded, his first team when he was 14 years old. She played there until 1934 and the following year she went to Laietà until 1940, she also moved to the Women’s Section (1941-1944) and to Barcelona until 1953. But these were not easy times because with Franco it was not well seen for women to have initiatives. “He wanted us to stay only for housework and to give healthy children to the country. But I kept playing. She worked as a dressmaker and earned six pesetas, but she was very active and she couldn’t handle sewing and ironing, ”Encarna recounted while she regretted that she had gone from playing with some shorts and blouses to put on skirts so long that they barely allowed them to move. “But I did not resign myself,” she added. So the regime ended up selecting her as a physical education instructor and coach of the Falange Women’s Section and, in 1946, she was one of the first women to obtain the official title of the Federation as well as to drive in Barcelona.
Its relevance is not measured by medals or honors, since the Women’s League (1964) or the European Cup (1959) had not even been created, but by defending basketball in the lead stage of Francoism. A merit that was recognized by the Higher Sports Council (CSD) by distinguishing her in 2020 with the Gold Medal for Sports Merit. For this reason, even though Encarna has now said goodbye and cannot make one of her hooks, she will always go down in history for being the mother of Spanish basketball, also the girl who defended women’s rights with a ball in her hands.
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