He has never loved the big stage and the limelight, but for what he has done in the world of sport, figures like his, if they weren’t there, would make everything more difficult and complicated. This is why when yesterday morning the news of Salvatore Esposito’s passing, at the age of 73 and after a short illness, spread, the condolences were unanimous. Teacher for many years of high school (physics and chemistry) in Pescia, his name for Pistoia means the role of secretary at the time of Olimpia alongside Roberto Maltinti and many other managers who have made basketball history in these latitudes and, subsequently, an assignment that lasted for various mandates as provincial delegate of the Fip (Italian Basketball Federation), until he returned to being secretary with the Panathlon Club. “With Salvatore Esposito – recalls Luca Magni, lawyer and historical voice of our basketball –, another piece of the history of basketball in Pistoia is gone, he who was part of that small club which, with little money and a lot of inventiveness, managed to bring the Pistoia name up to Serie A. He was the secretary, a sort of factotum ready to answer every question, to cover every hole. Player in his youth, then manager of Olimpia for many years. A passion for basketball that he maintained, holding the position of provincial delegate of the Fip for many years”.
Esposito leaves his beloved sister and yesterday he was exhibited in the chapels of the farewell of the San Jacopo hospital. At the behest of the family, only after his cremation will a suffrage mass be celebrated in memory of him.
“Salvatore belonged to that ‘nucleus’ of pioneers who from the end of the 1970s began to lay the foundations for basketball to emerge in the city – recalls Pistoia Basket 2000 which released an official note – together with a group of managers, and friends, who then led to the conquest of Serie A with the magical night in Arese, opening the epic Olimpia.And at that time Esposito was the secretary of the club: when there was a problem to be solved, or arranging a trip, all you had to do was ask to him and the solution came up. Subsequently he played the role of provincial delegate of the Fip for many years, remaining in contact with our society”.
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