May 21, 2013
Devotion
Laietà, where it all started
Father Millan playing with his pupils at the Sant anton EscolapisWhen the world basketball family celebrates the 2011 Turkish Airlines Euroleague Final Four this spring in Barcelona, Spain, some thanks should be reserved for the Laietans. That is the name by which historians call Barcelona's original occupants, who arrived during the Bronze Era, well over 2,000 years ago, fell in love with the sunny and warm Mediterranean coast, and settled what is now one of the world's most fascinating cities. And that is also the name by which Spain’s very first basketball players chose to call themselves, Laietà Basketball Club.

As history shows, a priest named Eusebio Millan returned home to Barcelona from his travels in the United States and Cuba intent on teaching basketball to students at his school, Escolapis de Sant Antoni. The year was 1921 and there were no hardwood floors or glass backboards to play on; certainly no flashy high-tops or tight, long-sleeved armbands to run around in. And the mere thought of a 17,000 seat-capacity arena like the Palau Sant Jordi filled with fans was as distant a notion as dunking on the moon is now. Nevertheless, the Laietà Basketball Club was founded by a few true believers and the game of basketball began its journey in Spain.

"We played for the love of the game, just for sport, and it was a shoestring sport at that!" says 82-year-old Enric Piquet, one of the club’s most recognized members, ex-president of the Catalonian Basketball Federation and unofficial guardian of Laietà’s rich legacy. About the possible popularity of the sport in the future, Piquet says, "it never really entered our minds."

Enric Piquet in a CE Laieta jerseySome of Piquet's treasured photos attest to Spain’s basketball beginnings: bulky, well-combed quintets in short shorts and tight-knit jerseys pose defiantly on dusty courts, laced up in typical espardenyas, Catalonia’s trademark peasant-like footwear. They sported white and blue uniforms with Laietà’s initial "L" across the chest, later expanding to “Layetano” as the name suffered the obligatory translation to Spanish that Francisco Franco’s dictatorship required from 1939 to 1975.

Laietà, a self-proclaimed family-oriented club currently known as Club Esportiu Laietà, suffered during those dark years, almost disappearing into oblivion after its lease in the Barcelona city center ran out. With no affordable athletic real estate in sight and only 80 members left out of 800, the club was forced to relocate. It was 1964, a time when basketball was no longer a top priority at the club, a far cry from when Padre Millan first introduced the sport to his San Antoni alumni.

It is still unclear whether the priest first became acquainted with basketball during a stay in the United States or if he was swayed by the bouncing balls in Cuba, where U.S. soldiers played the sport with the locals. Either way, Millan definitely came back to Barcelona with a purpose: to introduce basketball. At first the clergyman’s new-found passion clashed with that of his students' preference for football. It became a struggle, to the point that Millan removed all footballs from the school to try and force basketball on the young men. Finally, a compromise was reached: they would split their sports time evenly, devoting three days of the week to football and three to basketball.

Game played at the first CE Laieta court in 1939The trade-off proved more than adequate, as the students who graduated the following year chose to keep playing the new sport and, with that in mind, founded the first Spanish basketball club: Laietà. Their dedication included practicing at 6 a.m. each morning for three hours before going to work. The first official game ever played in Spain was on December 8, 1922, at C.E. Europa’s home court, where the hosts notched an 8-2 victory. The sport caught on fast enough that within four months, a tournament was held over three weekends and refereed by a staffer from the U.S. consulate with teams from Laietà, Europa, Societé Patrie, Catalunya, La France, America Stars, Barcelona and Espanyol. The latter two were not affiliated yet with the football clubs of the same name, but soon enough the likes of F.C. Barcelona, Real Madrid and R.C.D. Espanyol opted to incorporate basketball to their sports programs. Laietà played them all and in its the glory days won the Spanish Cup - the only national competition at the time - in 1942 and 1944. But as basketball professionalized, Laietà chose to remain at the amateur level, eventually losing its star players to teams that could pay their wages. Consequently, the sport was relegated in its own club hierarchy in favor of tennis and roller hockey, even as it expanded worldwide in the following decades.

C.E. Laietà, with over 2,000 members, is healthy now, as the club’s eighth president, Miquel Sambola, confirmed. “We are debt-free after many years of struggles, when the members were the ones keeping the boat afloat.”

Enric Piquet, former president of the Catalan Federation, playing a game during the 40s at CE Laieta courtIt was Piquet himself who found the current club headquarters, next to FC Barcelona’s imposing Camp Nou grounds, back in 1965, when the club had been left without a home. And even though the basketball section has scaled down considerably from its championship days, the spirit is very much alive through its youth program, Sambola says: “We don’t compete for trophies anymore, and we had to accept not playing at the top league level because the players couldn't afford it. Our focus is on the schools, helping kids develop and enjoy their sport.”

Though the message may sound hollow to some, it is not that far gone from Padre Millan’s original intentions- or those of his predecessors. Even though the first game was that Europa-Laietà clash in 1922, and the official version stands that it was Millan who introduced basketball to Spain, Piquet maintains it was a trio of educators from Terrasa, a city located about 30 kilometers south along the Mediterranean coast, who took the initial baby steps. Eleven years earlier, Catalonia Secretary of Culture Eladi Homs and teachers Alexandre Gali and Artur Martorell returned from the United States with new educational theories, among them the firm notion that athletics were paramount to the formation of young students. Having witnessed the basketball games played at the Chicago YMCA, they even built baskets at their Vall Paradis school and played intramural games there. But the professors went their separates ways shortly after, and basketball as a sport enjoyed no continuity until Padre Millan decided to hide the footballs at San Antoni a decade later.

Piquet, like many others, became enamored of the game in the 1940s and started playing with his brothers, while catching games whenever and however they could: “We used to grab bricks that were scattered around and stand on top of them so we could watch the games over the fence,” he recalls.

The CE Laieta team at the second court in Viladomat street. The team reached the first division in season 1950-51Piquet started playing himself for Laietà long after the earliest games matched 11 players against 11, the same number of players as football then, or even 7 against 7. “Balls were heavier, leather-sewn like the ones used in football, and with a rubber spout that was slid under the skin and knotted with strings. Then you had to grease them, and it was quite a mess once you started bouncing them around on the clay surface," he recalled. “You had to store them well, too, as there weren’t that many to go around."

They played with two defenders, a pivot, and two wings. There wasn’t really a big center and positions weren’t determined by size or physical gifts as much as skill. The palomero - the name of a small hawk - was a guy that went streaking towards the basket as soon as you got the rebound and sometimes stayed there, since there was no three-second violation back then. Palomero remains part of basketball lexicon in Spanish today. Of course as basketball’s popularity grew, so did the rules, the numbers and the names. Today’s Euroleague features teams from 13 countries and players from around the world. With the eyes of the basketball world turning towards Barcelona to witness the 2011 Turkish Airlines Euroleague Final Four, it is a perfect time to look back fondly and remember the name where Spanish basketball started: Laietà.
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Alex Oller, Euroleague.net
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