At the end of the 1970s, the USA tried to loosen up relations with Cuba with college basketball players from South Dakota. It remained an episode.
Cuban-American encounter: At the 1972 Olympics, the schedule brought together the Cold War adversaries Photo: Pond5 Images/imago
When the Southern Airlines DC-9 took off from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on April 4, 1977, the plane’s occupants had no idea how they would be received in Cuba. Would the Americans be ignored or even treated with contempt? Things turned out differently.
The Cubans had literally rolled out a red carpet for the class enemy in Havana. Not only the two Democratic US politicians George McGovern and James Abourezk, representatives of the state of South Dakota in the US Senate, but also a dozen basketball players from South Dakota State University in Brookings and the University of South Dakota in Vermillion walked across the textile: basketball -Diplomats of the second NCAA student basketball league.
Anyone interested in politics is familiar with ping-pong diplomacy, i.e. the political rapprochement between China and the United States in the 1970s with the help of table tennis. Sport should build bridges where politics has failed. And so it was in 1977, when Democratic US President Jimmy Carter approved the efforts of the two senators from South Dakota from the highest levels.
The plans to send basketball players to Cuba for political détente were not new. It was also considered under the presidency of Republican Gerald Ford, but when Cuba sent troops to support the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), a left-wing extremist guerrilla group, in 1975, the project was put on hold.
Conversations with “charming” Castro
The change of government in Washington encouraged Abourezk and McGovern to relaunch their Cuba idea. At this point, they had already traveled several times to the island, which had been embargoed by the USA, and had had hours-long conversations with Máximo Líder, Fidel Castro. As they later described, they had very friendly relations with Castro, a baseball aficionado who also had something to do with basketball; He tried both sports in his youth. When Castro died in 2016, Abourezk said Castro was a difficult partner for the United States but a good leader for Cuba: “He was a charming and smart guy.”
Of course, baseball diplomacy was not progressing so well on a side track of sports policy: In May 1971, just a month after the table tennis trip to China, the Cuban-born and manager of the San Diego Padres, Preston Gómez, wanted to initiate a similar mission: He tried to guide a team of Major League Baseball all-stars to Cuba. Gómez, who had led the Havana Sugar Kings to victory in the 1959 Junior World Series, was granted permission by the Cuban government in 1970 to visit his home country to see his ailing father. Gómez met with government officials in Havana, but the US State Department blocked the move.
Even four years later, Gómez didn’t get any further. Nevertheless, an exchange took place on the smallest sports level: the US men’s volleyball team traveled to Cuba for an Olympic qualifying tournament in 1972, and US boxers and fencers also landed in Havana – but no comparison to the basketball missionaries, who were 42 years old. were accompanied by a full entourage. The politicians’ wives traveled with them in 1977, including South Dakota State University athletic director Dave Martin, a co-founder of the Miami Dolphins, Joe Robbie, media representatives and a number of tourists. They had bought in for the bargain price of $600 to see Cuba, both close and yet so far away.
It is also piquant that two stewardesses and a captain of the Southern Airlines plane had already landed in Havana – albeit as victims of one of the hijackings that were frequent at the time.
Tasteless joke
There was a first drink at the Havana airport, daiquiris were served, there was plenty to talk about, and Senator McGovern resorted to the somewhat tasteless joke that the tour group from South Dakota was probably the largest US troop to arrive in the country since the invasion Bay of Pigs landed in Cuba. Then it finally became sporty: Before the kick-off the following day, the national anthems were played, and 15,000 spectators in the Ciudad Deportiva coliseum showed sportsmanship: worth seeing actions by the guests were applauded, as were lay-ups by Ruperto Herrera Tabio, Félix Morales and Alejandro Urgellés. In the first game, which ended 91:72, the college team had just as little chance against Olympic-experienced Cubans as in the second game. The Caribbean team won again by 19 points: 88:69.
The US delegation then enjoyed a nice vacation on the Cuban beaches, met the best Cuban athletes, for example the Olympic gold runner Alberto Juantorena and boxer Teófilo Stevenson, and visited a baseball factory, farms and a senior citizens’ facility. The university athletes stayed for free in the Marazul Hotel in Santa Maria Del Mar, but also gave out plenty of gifts: especially jeans in all sizes.
Fidel Castro himself missed the historic basketball games. He was in Moscow at the time. Brother Raúl represented him and held talks with US senators. The Cuban basketball team, bronze medalists at the Munich Olympics, traveled to the USA for a return visit in September 1977. The delegation won again against the South Dakota teams, and also competed against Holy Cross and other college teams.
The fact that the idea of bringing enemy nations closer together didn’t really work at the time is proven by a more than unfortunate comment from the then university president of South Dakota, Chuck Lein: “To put it simply, they (the Cuban basketball players) looked like a bunch of communist idiots .” No wonder basketball diplomacy came to nothing.
2024-03-17 11:13:27
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