Ruperto Herrera: "Fidel encouraged me, supported me and told me that my children were still my children"

These interviews that CyberCuba It gives me the possibility to achieve, on many occasions they have given me life lessons; From many I have gained very positive experiences and in some cases, like the one I present to you today, I have discovered new aspects of a person that I have had the pleasure of knowing for almost 40 years.

This is the Olympic bronze medalist, president of the Cuban Basketball Federation and general secretary of the Cuban Olympic Committee, among other positions, the always kind, gentlemanly and correct Ruperto Herrera.

In his simple COC office, located in the capital's Vedado, Ruperto and I dusted off our memory and here is part of his life.

“I am from the capital through and through, I was born in Marianao in December 1949. I always liked sports, but I didn't start with basketball. Between the ages of 12 and 14, studying at the Juan Manuel Márquez Basic Secondary School, he alternated between baseball and athletics (he ran and jumped high, triple and long).

“I am runner-up in the first National School Games in 1963 in nothing less than triple jump. But my height was immense. Imagine that at 13 years old I was 1 meter 93 centimeters tall, something that gave me a complex.

"So much so that I asked my mother Olga if I had something wrong, until the old woman took me to the doctor, who after doing all kinds of tests told her: 'what the child has to do is become a player.' of basketball'.

“I listened to Dr. Arias and started practicing basketball with my high school classmates, among them the current coach of the Cuban men's team, Pepito Ramírez.

“As it was, not two months had passed, my team took part in an inter-school tournament that at that time was a real spectacle, and we lost, but I was selected to be part of the tournament that would represent the region.

“We lost again, they selected me again and I made the provincial, but now, I didn't pass from there, I barely played. They chose me for my height but I didn't even know how to play. “It was when I competed in the School Games and won silver in the triple.”

I don't know you from that time but Olga always told me that she didn't want you to be an athlete but a doctor.

"That's it. I had only one pair of shoes and they were for attending school (we are of extremely humble origins, wow, poor people), that is, I played barefoot on those scratchy, unpolished cement fields.

“I played with my school pants (I didn't have any other ones, not even shorts), they got soaked with sweat and I had to wait for them to dry so my mom wouldn't fight. She raised me very well, I thank her for everything I am, her and my stepfather Ramón, because I lost my newborn father.”

I had only one pair of shoes and they were for attending school, I played barefoot on those scratchy, unpolished cement courts. I played with my school pants, they got soaked with sweat and I had to wait for them to dry so my mom wouldn't fight

How do you get to practice officially? In those times there was no EIDE (Sports Initiation School).

“I went to the Valdés Daussá court at the university SEDER to watch the first category of Havana basketball. Excellent level! Pedro Chappé, Tamakún Martínez, and Jimmy Davis who were part of the national team played there.

"One of those days I ran into the then national commissioner Jaime Ferrer who, without prior introduction, blurted out to me: 'How tall are you, how old are you, do you like basketball?'

“'Yes, of course I like it,' I told him. 'I'm 14 years old and 6 feet 4 inches tall.'”

I imagine that he grabbed you right there and wouldn't let you go again, right? And what did your mother say when she saw that they were trying to take her doctor away from her?

“That was like a movie. Jaime explained to me that they were recruiting young and high talents throughout the country. I told him that my mother didn't want me to be an athlete and he insisted that he wanted to see her.

“He had to go several times because every time he announced the visit the old woman left, until one day he caught her. Ferrer was very talkative, she could convince anyone, and after a lot of talking she agreed with only one condition: I had to study at my neighborhood school.

“At that time, 1964, as you say, what EIDE was there going to be? There wasn't even Cerro Pelado, and I had to go to the well-known Casa del Atleta in Miramar, where what shined most in Cuban sport was concentrated.

“There I met the sprinters Miguelina Cobián and Enrique Figuerola, Chocolatico Pérez and La Pantera Betancourt, both boxing players, the fencer Mireya Rodríguez, and the men's national basketball team, among many others.”

But, when you were 14 years old you entered the national preselection?

"No. There we were the talents they looked for throughout the country (the experiments told us). We were 15 tall boys, very thin, many of us malnourished. There they gave us food reinforcement, vitamins, in short.

“And from Miramar, every day, Ferrer took me to and from the Marianao school, and when he couldn't, Domingo Zabala went, who later became the national baseball commissioner, father of the current coach of the Cuban women's basketball team.”

And how did the experiments work?

“Ferrer told us: 'You only have to think about basketball. No girlfriends, the girlfriend is the ball. "They have to sleep with a ball and every night, he checked to see who didn't sleep with the ball."

I notice that Rupe is moved by those memories and suddenly leaves the table and starts making quick movements exemplifying what he was saying.

“Look, he told us: 'You see a garbage tank, you make a change of direction or a turn, if you see a twig from a tree, jump and touch it: basketball movements, dribbling, dunking.'

“We trained in the extinct Parque Martí, and after only two months I already stood out above the others. That opened the doors for me to the national pre-selection that was getting ready to attend the Yokohama Olympic Qualifiers in 1964.

“They make eliminations and I surprise when I am among the last 14, until, of course, they eliminate me. I cried, but who would think of taking a 14-year-old boy to an event of such magnitude? I reasoned this much later, don't believe it was at that moment.

“But that was a starting point. I told myself: 'Ruperto, they are never going to eliminate you again.' In 1964, a Chinese team came to play at the Ciudad Deportiva and I joined the team, on the bench, but I graduated.”

Something that I have always asked myself is with that superb height that you have, why were you always a small forward, not a center or even a small forward?

“I loved my number 3 position. Our pivots were unbeatable and very strong: Pedro Chappé and Alejandro Urgellés. Why would I get into that flame?”

What team did you play with nationally and when did you start?

“When there was no Superior League, only National Championships; Twelve representative teams from the six provinces played, the provincial champion and a team from each of them. I always did it for Industriales (from 1964 to 1982). We became champions nine times in that period.

“In my debut at Nationals, we won the scepter, my first, and they celebrated my 15th birthday. My mom was proud. Little by little the idea of Medicine for Rupertico was getting out of his head! In that event I joined the ideal quintet and was chosen as the Cuban Rookie of the Year (1965).”

From then on, the boy Rupertico became a man, because at the end of that first national tournament in which he took part he always joined the national team, playing regularly until the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.

His retirement was in 1982, after concluding the Central American and Caribbean Games in Havana. His international competitive record is very extensive: five Central Caribbean Games, with two gold medals, as many silver and one bronze; four Pan American Games, the best of the performances in Cali 71, where for the first and only time Cuba defeated the United States, leaving them out of the metal discussion. On that occasion they finished third. Two World Championships, fourth place in San Juan-Puerto Rico 74, was the most outstanding, and four Olympic Games, from Mexico 68 to Moscow 80.

These multiple events scheduled in an Olympic quadrennium are joined by other competitions such as the University World Cups and Centrobásquet.

Of course, I think that Olympic bronze is indelible for you and your team. It was the only time that Cuban basketball, girls and boys, has been able to climb the podium.

“For me that has been the best Cuban basketball team in history, not only for having placed third, but for the way in which each of us performed on the court in Münich 72.

For me, that has been the best Cuban basketball team in history, not only for having placed third, but for the way in which each of us performed on the court in Munich 72

“That team was led by the great Carmelo Ortega and Ernesto Díaz as assistant. The point guards were Miguelito Calderón, Jabao Herrera, Rafael Cañizares and Conrado Pérez; the forwards, Franklin Standard, Telemaco Varona and me; the pivots, Pedro Chappé, Alejandro Urgellés, Juan Roca, Juan Domecq and José Miguel Álvarez Pozo.”

Tell me something that has not been widely disclosed, since most of the events are well known.

“Look, we arrived in Munich with very little hope of doing well. We had made a previous tour of former Soviet states that today are nations with tremendous basketball heritage, such as Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine, and of the 10 games we played, 10 we lost. A disaster! Can you imagine in what spirits we arrived at the Olympic venue?

“The one who never lost faith was Carmelo, for me the greatest technical director our basketball has ever had. We started playing (there were 16 teams divided into 2 groups) and who tells you that in ours, group A, we beat everyone except the United States (we beat powers like Brazil and Spain).

“That way we came second and went to the crossroads against the USSR, the super favorite, and we lost by only five points. It was a 'bloody' game as we say, very disputed. Italy did the opposite, which in the other key preserved itself from the Americans to arrive fresh to face us for the bronze.”

And it backfired, of course.

"Yeah. I remember that match as one of the most fought in my life. 66-65 was the final score, you decide. “I have not experienced a more exciting moment than that: being on the Olympic podium.”

Any anecdote that you remember among so many?

“Yes, how can I forget her? The difference was one point, there were only seconds left until the final whistle and an Italian intercepted the ball and went to his hoop alone. If they scored, Italy would have won. At that moment, in the middle of that bustle, Carmelo's voice is heard shouting: 'Blind him Santa Bárbara' and he failed! Just under the rim and he missed: I grabbed the rebound, we handled the ball for the few seconds we had left and victory for Cuba!”

I listen to Ruperto Herrera Tabío and I remember so many good moments that Cuban sport has experienced, and I pray that you do not leave this world without seeing it return to the universal elite.

Changing the subject Rupe, in addition to your mother Olga and your stepfather (father), now deceased, you have a beautiful family: three children, five grandchildren and your wife, María Antonieta, Marisol's mother who is now 37 years old.

“That's right, I am a happy and proud family father.”

However, 1999 was very difficult for you. That year your two sons, both basketball players and members of the national team, deserted. Ruperto Herrera is a man of firm convictions, a person who believes in what he has lived and done. My respect and admiration for him. A man in every sense of the word, who speaks without fear of that 1999.

“At a training base in Argentina, taking advantage of an agreement with the Obras Sanitarias club, where we had hired Lázaro Borrell, Rupertico (Junior Herrera for basketball lovers at that time) stayed.

“It shocked me, it hurt me, but Rupertico was always strong, with his own ideas; But six months later, when the Pre-Olympic was taking place in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Roberto Carlos (El Chispa), the youngest of my children, left the delegation, along with Lázaro Borrell, Ángel Oscar 'el Ninja' Caballero and Héctor Pino .

“In full competition! and I was there as a federative member of the Executive of COPABA (Pan American Basketball Confederation, today FIBAAMÉRICAS).

“Roberto Carlos hit me twice: first, because it was in a tournament that we had to abandon: who plays with eight athletes in addition to the psychological collapse of the team?

“And second, because even if you love your children the same, that was the weakest, the sickest, who I had to take care of and feed because his mother went to Angola for five years on a mission; Furthermore, they always lived with me.

“Roberto Carlos and I had the same tastes for ball and chess; He told his brother: 'the one who has to be called Ruperto is me.' Well, that one, that one left, just like that.”

I don't want to be in your place, because you also had to stay until the end of the competition, right?

“Of course, and the press harassed me cruelly. By telling you that I was 'The figure of the week' of the newspaper New day. At the same time, I received messages of encouragement from many parts of the planet. I was never alone.

“When I arrived in Cuba they met me and took me to the presence of Fidel, who encouraged me, supported me and told me that my children were still my children. He compared me to Maceo and told me to continue with my work, something I will never forget. At that time I was already vice president of the Olympic Committee.”

Ruperto is currently General Secretary of the Cuban Olympic Committee, that is, the second figure of such an important organization, holder of the Cuban Basketball Federation, vice president of FIBAAMERICAS, and heads the CONCECABA (Central American and Caribbean Basketball Confederation), among other functions in international sports institutions.

I would like to know what my friend Marie Antoinette, his wife of many years, says about this.

“You don't change, what is he going to say? She is proud like Mom Olga when I scored my first baskets. I was active in the national team for 19 years and now I have been in the Olympic Committee for 21 years.

“Of course nothing fell from the sky: I studied a lot, I graduated from the first year of Fajardo as a center of higher education in 1977 and I was the best student in the Faculty of Sports, I taught as a teacher while a player, I was Head of the Sports Department with ball for three years, and then commissioner of basketball, and I am president of the Cuban Federation.”

Precisely, as a Federation, what can you tell me about the current health of our basketball. For me, boys are on the rise, the complete opposite of girls who were the best we had for decades.

“You are absolutely right, the feminine is stagnant. Short stature does not help although we have a group of talents that we are working in their provinces.

“In the men's team we already have very good young players: Javier Justiz, center, who played in Argentina and has now been hired by the strong Spanish league, power forward Yaciel Rivero and forward Karén Guzmán, the latter two playing in Argentina. “We hope for improvement in a couple of years, recovering lost positions in the area and on the continent.”

I can't leave without asking you the best historical basketball players.

“Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, all American forwards, and the Mexican Manuel Raga, also a forward.”

I really have before me a courteous man, one of those who pulls out your chair and gives you the way; He opens the door for you and goes down to greet my son who acted as the carrier. And looking at that sincere face that still doesn't look close to 70, I ask him my last question.

How does Ruperto Herrera want to be remembered, the number 5 of the CUBA Olympic bronze medalist, a basketball player inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2015, who received the FIBA Order of Merit in 1999, and who has earned it in his own right the place of president of the Cuban Olympic Committee, when José Ramón Fernández retires as a natural process due to his advanced age?

“As an athlete who gave himself, he always prepared himself to the maximum to give the best for his sport, for his country: a patriot who loves what is his and his family.”