The excitement of playing alongside your idol for a day

A shrill voice resounds amidst the commotion that dozens of students from the Maristas San José del Parque school in Madrid have created in the basketball pavilion. “He’s coming, he’s coming!” says one of the kids when he sees the imposing figure of basketball player Sergio Rodríguez (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1993) enter through one of the doors. The Movistar Estudiantes forward walks through a corridor that some of the children have formed, like a welcoming procession, and heads to the stands where the rest, more than a hundred kids, are waiting. There is a special reason for his visit. Rodríguez is the protagonist of one of the Gigantes by Endesa Basket Lover campuses, the summer training camps that have been promoting basketball practice among children during their summer holidays for a decade.

The Endesa League star spent a day with the students of San José del Parque. He played with them, taught them tricks to shoot better at the basket, signed their shirts and answered all their questions. “Except for how tall I am, which they always ask me. I’ll tell you first: 2.04 metres,” Rodríguez tells his audience, who are amazed by his height. “Wow, how tall…” some murmur.

A day with a star from the Endesa League

The Canary Islander was also one of those children whose parents signed him up for basketball camps every summer. It helped him dream, almost prophetically, of becoming a professional. “All the memories I have are very nice. You meet a lot of teammates and you are excited to have visits from your idols,” he recalls. Now he sees it from the other side and it is him who hundreds of kids look up to. For professional players, he says, these camps are an opportunity to pass on their experiences and the values ​​they have acquired in their career. “We were children too and we know that they are excited to have a good time. And so am I.”

The Gigantes campuses were created in 2014 by the magazine Gigantes. More than 19 editions have already been completed, both during the summer school holidays and at Christmas. Its success has led to the number of venues almost doubling in recent years, going from 14 sites in 2021 to 26 in 2024 throughout the country and from 2,130 participants to 3,690. The age of those enrolled varies from 7 to 17 years, although the largest number is concentrated between 10 and 12 years old, explains Sergio Sánchez (La Línea de la Concepción, Cádiz, 1981), responsible for expansion of the Gigantes campuses. “The philosophy is that children enjoy that time when they no longer have school. There are children who do not know each other and in three days they become friends,” explains Sánchez, who also played professionally for 12 years in the Endesa League.

The aim of the camps, according to Sánchez, is to encourage youth basketball to have “an increasing space in society”. And with that, to promote the values ​​associated with this sport. “A very important part is to remove individualism and encourage collective leisure, teamwork, friendship…”. But there is also time for the sporting part. “We want them to come out better players than when they came in”. Sánchez himself has signed his children up for the San José del Parque campus that he runs: “I always tell them to enjoy it because when you grow up and become a professional it is a different story”, he summarises.

In this effort to improve the sporting conditions of the students, they propose activities to improve individual technique, team play or shooting. The students of the campus train in groups of about 10 players, separated by age, but then join together to promote camaraderie. Thus, the older players encourage the younger ones, and vice versa. All under the supervision of the coaches. David de Teresa, 20 years old, has been attending the San José del Parque campus as a coach for three years, both in the summer and winter editions. He, who this year will play for Arganda del Rey in the National League, also attended the Gigantes campuses from when he was a young player – 10 years old – until the children’s category – 14 years old – and he believes that children “can learn a lot”. For example, to manage frustration due to a “simple exercise that doesn’t work out for them” or to be better teammates by helping those who have more problems. “Values ​​that are difficult to instill unless you are in sport,” says De Teresa. “I see the children enjoying this beautiful sport, which I think is the most important thing.”

Marta Garrido, 15, a student at San José del Parque who has been at the campus for the first time this summer, confirms her feelings. “The experience is very good, the coaches are super friendly and they teach you a lot of things,” she says. Her dream is to be a professional basketball player (“my position is point guard, I direct the game”) and she recognises that the advice from the instructors is essential to “take the pressure off” during games. What she enjoys most is hanging out with her teammates at the end of each training session. The same goes for Akalu Pardo, a 16-year-old student who has been attending the campus since he was 10, who emphasises the “good vibes” with the others. “You help the little ones and it makes us all get along. It motivates us to make lots of friends,” he says. He also values ​​the visit of a professional player, as “it has made us see things that we normally don’t see in interviews.” He took advantage of Sergio Rodríguez’s visit to ask him a question, albeit with a bit of humour. “Before I arrived, the coaches told me: ‘Ask him something funny’. That’s why I wanted to know how much he earns,” he explains, laughing, although he admits that the Canary Islander, with a feint typical of a match, has avoided the question with a smile. What he has not managed to avoid has been the question about his height. “I already knew that some people would ask me that…”, the forward laughs.