The night before the game, you sleep little, especially if you play in the morning: adrenaline? Anxiety? Haste? So you wake up early, at a time that resembles the one needed to go to the airport for the first flight of the day. And this day will be just like a journey, a meeting with friends and strangers, all a bit dreamers engaged in the second championship game of baskin Puglia Molise for our team, the Delfini Baskin of Monopoli.
Sara had started dreaming: “Hi Vivi,” she told me on the phone, “during the national meeting of young people of Faith and Light in Fano, we met Edoardo, a boy from the Milan community who has been practicing baskin for several years now. What do you say if we do baskin in Monopoli?” After that first chat, after the dark period of covid, after talking about it with friends (like me) from Faith and Light and with the asd Scuola Basket Delfini Monopoli, we finally created a real team. Not only that: after fifteen months of work on the field, a few weeks ago we made our debut in the Puglia-Molise championship organized by Eisi (Italian Inclusive Sports Entity).
Delfini Baskin supporters
Baskin, or inclusive basketball, allows people with different physical and cognitive functionalities to practice a competitive sport, without any welfare logic and gender division. People of different ages, sexes, physical, cognitive, and sensory abilities who play in the fullest harmony: a new paradigm of competition, a new approach to sociality. Almost an experiment: all the kids are involved in the team’s WhatsApp group.
This time, La Scuola di basket Lecce is the guest of MoBasket – Scuola Basket Delfini Monopoli, for the second day of the championship. The guests: in the front row Alice, curly-curly, with the legendary coach Daniele Michelutti; both arrive in the blue away uniform. Among ours, I look with admiration at the Zazzera family. I tell about them because, besides being great supporters forever, in this game they break every record: Matteo referees on the court, Carlo is at the scoresheet, Angelo is on the bench as a tutor, super fan Chiara is in the stands. Wonderful!
In the first meeting with Corato, we counted about thirty-eight kids in the team; the city of Monopoli responded with three hundred spectators. For the second game, the gym is again full of people and we want to give joy: the kids go beyond their possibilities, they let themselves be carried away, they jump, run, resist, do things that in training we only “perceived”. Compared to the first game with Corato, there are eight debutants – Zichen, Roby, and Vito even score! A week ago, Raffaele and Angela joined to lend a hand: between cheering and collaboration, it seems they’ve been with us forever.
We play well, Aldo makes a big basket, Domi a spectacular tap in; then halfway through the game we do ten extra minutes to rotate six more kids. Time passes, the score stops – this time for a very friendly moment. It’s an official game but we adapt everything a bit thanks to the wonderful referee Daniele Scotch Vergine and the friends from Lecce, equally marvelous. Among them Olga who scores from the protected area: the public cheers and she thanks with a casquè. We happily observe the gym full until the end: there’s homage to be paid to each of the participants, thank them and run towards them to give them a heartfelt high five.
Living the community and a small part of it means contributing to a more equitable and inclusive society. Now we hope to create a second play group, to expand the sphere of tutors and volunteers to work better on the field. Challenges are part of sports: we count on being able to do it. As a coach and national minibasket instructor, and for three years a baskin coach, I am very proud of what we have achieved and I wish every basketball sports club to have a section dedicated to baskin within it.
