Encarna Hernández, one of the pioneers of Spanish basketball, poses with a Spanish team jersey bearing her name.Raquel Barrera (EL PAÍS)
Encarna Hernández (Lorca 1917 – Barcelona 2022) died this Monday at the age of 105 and universal recognition for being the mother of Spanish women’s basketball, a woman who awakens and keeps alive the flame of basketball in her heart and on the courts until she got pregnant and decided not to dribble the ball anymore. And although she remained anonymous for many years, in 2013 she happened to meet a journalist who lived near her home in the Eixample – where she had a veritable sanctuary and museum of press clippings and photographs – and finally gave her light, color and It-shapes Life dedicated to the basket like no other, finally captured in a documentary by the production company Ochichornia, which brought her life to the big screen with the documentary La Niña del Gancho (2016, Filmin).
Although he was born in Lorca (Murcia), in 1929 his parents – Andrés and Pascuala – decided to pack their bags with their 12 children to live in Barcelona. There, from the balcony of her house, she saw how a couple of neighborhood boys—one of whom eventually became her husband—had hired a railway to fix with a fence and some baskets. Then his passion germinated thanks to the approval of his father, who had previously encouraged him to try in-line skating, cycling, swimming and rhythmic gymnastics. “He was modern and liberal and he allowed me to play because I wanted to be an athlete. Sport is life and health, it takes bad things away from you. I am air, water and sun. Sport gave me that,” Encarna recalled a few years ago.
A few days later, she checked in with her sister Maruja and other friends to dribble and shoot the ball. And since she was small (1.57 meters) but brilliant, she was encouraged to polish the hook. “They called me La Niña del Gancho because she made them with great elegance and failed almost none of them. He didn’t do it in any way, you have to know it and have taste and class for it. He would jump, shoot over the head and… hit the basket. What times those were!” Encarna declared with pride, almost as much for the recognition he had received over time. But it rained a lot.
Undated picture of the basketball team that Encarna Hernández, known as the girl with the hook EL PAÍS, played on
In 1931 the Atlas Club was formed, his first team when he was 14 years old. She played there until 1934 and the following year she went to Laietà until 1940, she also moved to the women’s department (1941-1944) and to Barcelona until 1953. But it wasn’t easy times because Franco was not doing well with women have initiatives. “He wanted us to just stay for housework and give the country healthy kids. But I kept playing. She worked as a seamstress and earned six pesetas, but she was very active and didn’t know how to sew or iron,” said Encarna, while regretting that she had gone from playing with shorts and blouses to wearing long skirts, that they hardly allowed them to exercise.”But I have not resigned,” he added.For this reason, the regime finally chose her as physical education teacher and coach of the women’s section of Falange, and in 1946 she was one of the first women to receive the official Received Federation title and raced in Barcelona.
Its relevance is not measured by medals or honors, since the Women’s League (1964) or the European Cup (1959) had not even been created, but by defending basketball at the height of Francoism. A merit recognized by the Higher Sports Council (CSD) by awarding her the Gold Medal for Sports Merit in 2020. For this reason, although Encarna is now gone and unable to make any of her hooks, she will always go down in history as the mother of Spanish basketball, also as the girl who defended women’s rights with a ball in her hands.
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