You are 13 years old, an age when you really everything should be ‘easy’. However, school is a hostile place where you suffer harassment for simply being taller than others. And although you try to take refuge in competitive skiing, it is not enough. He bullying to which you are subjected for touching the meter 85 It sinks too deep. And your desire is, precisely, to remove what you then thought were “extra centimeters.” Who was going to tell you that 14 years later, thanks to your height you are going to become a benchmark and break a glass ceiling on the other side of the pond. This is the story of Gina Cerezuela (Barcelona, 1995)the girl who, by chance, at the door of a kebab was invited to try basketball and who This Monday, November 6, she becomes the first woman to be a Division I assistant coach of the women’s NCAA with the USF Bulls of the University of South Florida.
“I was with my parents at a shawarma (kebab) after a weekend we had gone skiing, because I did competitive skiing. She was 13 years old and was already around meter 85. And nothing, we went to get the shawarma, we were leaving and at that moment a girl comes running. My father there thought that, typically, he would ask him for a cigarette. But no,” says Gina Cerezuela from her home in Florida, through a video call with Relevo. That girl was Laura Suanzes, now a coach in the Penya quarry and what she really wanted was to ask her “if she had played basketball, if he played and if he wanted to try.” And he did.
“Imagine, a creature measuring 85 meters, who has never touched a ball in his life… He was a dizzy duck, but hey”, Cerezuela confesses. And that “but good” the truth is that it has a lot of history behind it. “At that moment in my life I was suffering from bullying at school. Pretty heavy bullying. And just What in school was a drama, which was being tall, in basketball it was like: how cool, you’re big“explains the now assistant coach in South Florida. “That, which was at CB Roser, gave me a lot of confidence and the truth is that the entire team welcomed me very well and I started playing. That same year the Catalan team called me to go to the pre-selection and it was like: ‘Wow, I’m special here.’ What do they laugh at me about at school? It makes me special. “He gave me a lot of strength,” she says.
From then on, his life was never separated from basketball. She went through several teams, such as Sant Adrià or Mataró and then was signed by the junior team of Perfumerías Avenida. Although her academic subject meant that she only spent one year in Salamanca. “At the basketball level, very good; but at the level of studies… very bad. And my father was very clear that girls’ professional basketball was not like boys’ basketball and that In the end, education is very important. “So I returned home and as punishment, they didn’t let me play in the highest junior category, but they did let me play in the Catalonia Cup, which is the highest senior regional category.”
And then, once she had graduated from high school, “although not with very good grades,” she decided to become a teacher. And study in Spain. Because although the US had already knocked on her door, at that time she did not see it clearly. “I played for Barça in the Women’s League 2. Well, play in quotes, because I was on the bench [ríe], but being there at 18 years old was already a reward. I had Tito Sobrín as a coach and I improved a lot. That year, I saw that being a teacher was not my thing, it was not my passion. But my grade was not the best after leaving high school and I couldn’t enter ADE. So one day, I remember that I went to a pavilion and saw an American coach along with another Spaniard that I knew, Daniel Montoliu, and the light went on.“. And that light ended up making her jump over the puddle… For the first time.
“I told Daniel if he would take me to the US. And he asked me if I was sure because he had told me 8,000 times and I had always said no. I remember going home, telling my parents I was going to Florida, and they thought it was like ‘another Gina story.’ Until one day I told him: Dad, I need 400 dollars for the visa, can you pay me? And when he saw that I was serious about studying, he told me that he would help me.”
That was when he began to train in ADE while playing basketball. An arduous path that began crookedly. However, he still had a lot to do on the other side of the pond and managed to overcome a depression that made him move to South Carolina. “I spent two years there with coach ‘Pee Wee’ Johnson, who had played 16 years in Spain. His wife is also Spanish. So it was like feeling at home.” That stage at Coker University in South Carolina closed with graduation in Business Administration and Management (ADE).. And in 2018 his life returned to his native Barcelona… Although not for long.
“I worked in an occupational risk prevention service and I played with my friends for fun, while Francisco Soro trained me. Then Albert Illa called me to defend a meter 94 girl who was starting to play and I started training with him. There were many girls who started asking me questions because they wanted to go to the US. I explained everything to them.I connected with them so much that they asked me to stay on as an assistant coach.
It was then that Montoliu thought of her to teach girls about what it’s like to take the leap to play and study in the US and that ended up becoming her job for five years until a few months ago, South Florida coach, José Fernández, opted for her to be part of his staff.
“Coach Fernández always told me: you work very hard, if I can, I will try to help you come to the US. Previously he had already offered me to pay for my master’s degree and train, but I said no. Then in March the NCAA came out with a new rule. Before the staff could have three assistant coaches and now it went to five. He came to Spain to sit with the family of Judith Valero y Judith Oliva [junto con Marina Asensio y Carla Brito son las cuatro españolas que esta temporada militan en las Bulls] and we went to eat. He asked me if he would leave and after discussing the conditions I told him yes, I was going headlong.
And after some bureaucratic problems, on September 25 she ended up arriving at South Florida, a university with a plural team (there are 12 international players of the 15 that make up the squad) where, in addition to being an assistant She also acts as a recruiter of foreign talent.
“If they tell 14 or 15-year-old Gina that she is going to end up being a coach at South Florida… I just laugh,” she confesses. Because basketball changed his life at all levels. Therefore, having the phrase ‘For infinity and beyond’ tattooed is no coincidence. “I have a tattoo that says ‘For infinity and beyond’ and a basketball. I know it’s ‘to’ instead of ‘for’ but for me it’s ‘para’. Because I use basketball for everything. My friends are all from basketball; Basketball has given me the power to pursue the career I wanted; being able to have a social environment in which I feel like one more. It suits me well. I wear heels and I don’t care if I’m tall. In the end I am who I am and basketball has given me that. Loving myself. Maturation makes you realize that basketball, being tall, has paid for my studies, it has paid for me to be able to travel, make friends… And my meter 93 I wouldn’t change it for anything“. Some values that today, from the Bulls bench, he tries to transmit to the players of tomorrow.
Noelia Gómez Mira is a basketball specialist for Relevo, where she reviews what happens in competitions such as the ACB and the Euroleague. She has been the second female speaker in the history of professional basketball in Spain and the only one during the six years who gave voice to Covirán Granada. In her career she has collaborated with the ACB as a speaker for the Endesa Mini Cup and was section chief in the newspaper Granada Hoy, where she covered other types of information such as Operation Líbero against the former president of Granada CF Quique Pina. Originally from Salobreña, she has a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the University of Granada, with a Master’s degree in New Interactive Media and Multimedia Journalism. …
2023-11-06 17:11:41
#Basketball #love #Relief
