The sports commentator René Navarro shared an emotional tribute on Facebook this Friday, reflecting on his friendship with Eugenio George Laffita, the most decorated coach in Cuban women's volleyball. The tribute centers around a question that was never answered: what would have been the "Six All-Time Ideal" of the Caribbean Girls.
The text, titled "Stories of the MORENAS," opens with the memory of the first meeting between them in the summer of 1963. "I met Eugenio George Laffita in the summer of 1963. I had heard about him in our press publications and in the electronic media, but I didn't know him personally," Navarro wrote.
The stage was set at the Pepe Barrientos stadium, in the Havana neighborhood of Luyanó, during the first National School Games. Navarro, who was then 17 years old, approached an acquaintance from the area and said, "I want to meet Eugenio." Moments later, he was face to face with someone who, in his own words, would be "the greatest figure in Cuban volleyball in the 20th century."
"I was 17 years old then, and I could have never imagined that my future would be so closely tied to EUGENIO," the narrator recalled, the creator of the nickname "Morenas del Caribe" —and later "Espectaculares Morenas del Caribe"— with which the Cuban women's team became known during its time of greatest glory.
Friendship deepened starting in 1965 and reached a unique episode in 1970, when Navarro, George, Eliseo Acosta, and Eddy Martín shared 40 days of hospitalization at the Acción Médica clinic in Santos Suárez. "Victims of that outbreak of typhoid fever detected in the fields of Jatibonico, we were confined to a cubicle," he recounted.
It was during a visit to Hong Kong, amidst international tours with the women's team, that Navarro first posed the question about the ideal team. “Once while visiting Hong Kong, I asked about a possible IDEAL SIX of Cuban women's volleyball, and the response was silence,” he wrote.
Navarro did not give up. In the final days of the coach's life, he visited him at the Julio Trigo Hospital, where George was recovering from a surgical procedure. After hours of conversation, he attempted to rephrase the question and mentioned the names of more than 15 athletes for him to choose his ideal team.
The response was once again an evasion: “NOTHING, he talked to me about positions, height, jump ability, reaction, reflexes, intelligence, skills, and character, but he avoided the question.”
The story concludes with a reflection that blends admiration and resignation: "I was left with the desire to know the IDEAL SIX of all time. And if it wasn't EUGENIO, who else would hold the true TRUTH?"
George, born in Baracoa on March 29, 1935, passed away on May 31, 2014, at the age of 81. The FIVB recognized him as the best women's team coach of the 20th century and was inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2005. Under his leadership, the Morenas del Caribe won three consecutive Olympic gold medals — Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, and Sydney 2000 — as well as three World Championships (1978, 1994, and 1998) and three World Cups (1989, 1991, and 1995), among other titles.
Among its stars were Mireya Luis, Regla Torres —named by the FIVB as the best player of the 20th century—, Regla Bell, Rayza O'Farrill, Marlenis Costa, and Yumilka Ruiz, a generation that brought Cuban women's volleyball to a height it has not reached again.
Navarro, awarded the National Television Award 2022, is going through a very precarious economic situation, reflecting the crisis that affects millions of Cubans. In January 2024, he revealed that he had sold his car to be able to eat, with a retirement pension of 1,733 Cuban pesos per month, and in July 2026 described the reality of the island as a “mental and physical torture”. His series “Stories of the MORENAS” is, in this context, also a refuge in the memory of times when Cuba dominated world volleyball.
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