San Antonio Spurs center Fabricio Oberto is turning people in his Argentina hometown into NBA aficionados
The San Antonio Express-News
Tuesday, June, 12, 2007
By ANDREW MARRA
Special to the Express-News
LAS VARILLAS, Argentina — Few people know what “spurs” means in this pueblo amid fields of soy and alfalfa. But they all know No.7, the scrappy, longhaired giant darting across the TV with that strange word on his chest.
It was one thing to see the hometown boy bring back trophies from Argentinean and European basketball leagues. Another still to watch him bow his head for an Olympic gold medal.
But this time it’s the NBA Finals on TV. Fabricio Oberto, their 6-foot-10 “Bebé” from Las Varillas, in the heart of the Argentinean flatlands, suddenly has a lead role on the world’s biggest basketball stage.
“We still get nervous two or three hours before a game,” Mauricio Loza, 34, said in Spanish. “That a friend is in the NBA playing in the Finals is incredible.”
Loza is a boyhood friend and former club teammate of Oberto’s. And the odds of an athlete sprouting from a pueblo in the heart of soccer country to become a key player in the Finals is not lost on anyone. So even those who have never held a basketball, who don’t know the low post from a bench post, still make a point to cheer.
“Before, the people never watched basketball here. Now, they all watch,” Loza said. “In one way or another, all of the people here are Spurs fans.”
It’s not always easy to be a Spurs fan in the Argentinean countryside. The games are rarely on TV and always start late (Argentina is two hours ahead of San Antonio right now). In the tiny towns that float here like forgotten islands on farmland plains, connected by skinny highways and cable TV, soccer is still the undisputed king.
While key soccer matches are watched ceremoniously in bars and restaurants — shouted at, cheered and lamented in loud groups — basketball games lack the same social status. Even in Las Varillas, NBA games are watched quietly, late, at home.
Nonetheless, the sport has been coming into its own in towns like this one — helped by the success of the Spurs and their two Argentinean players, Oberto and Manu Ginobili.
Spurs fans are everywhere in Argentina, but it is hard to imagine a sense of collective pride stronger than in Las Varillas. As their team pulled further ahead in the Finals on Sunday, children here were watching faithfully, following the Argentineans’ moves with a worshipful gleam.
Back when Oberto was shooting his first jumpers here on the dusty floor in the athletic club’s warehouse-like gym, no one had seen a live NBA game. And an Argentine country boy aspiring to play in the world’s elite league was like an Eskimo aspiring to surf.
“What he’s achieved is something none of us could ever have even dreamed of when we were kids,” said Nícolas Nani, 37, a childhood friend and physical therapist who has treated many of Oberto’s injuries.
Back then, no Argentinean had played professionally in the United States. Yet when Oberto was a teen, some high school schoolmates making a class video asked him whom he wanted to greet. He sent out just two salutations: one to his parents, and one to the NBA.
Those were the days when he was not yet a giant, merely a tall, lanky, slightly bashful teen pedaling around on a cheap bike too small for his long legs.
Those were the days when “Bebé,” as he was nicknamed, played above his age level at the local club, Club Atlético Huracán, and later in a larger town an hour away, hitchhiking his way home to save on bus fare.
By then, he had already gained a reputation for work ethic and gutsy, selfless play.
Today, an enormous photo of him hovers over a backboard at the club where he got his start. A caption reads: “He began here. We are proud.”
“Now we all live emotionally through his career,” Nani said.
Las Varillas, with a population of about 18,000, is a town of tractor factories and farms. When Oberto was a boy, friends say, his father was a traveling machinery salesman, selling farm equipment around the country. Today his father manages a factory in town.
His parents, who declined to be interviewed, still live in Las Varillas, but in a larger house now in the center of town. Friends say the parents try to make the best of a tough balancing act in the pueblo, managing their role as long-time town dwellers who now happen to be parents of a wealthy star athlete.
Said Nani: “What they have to do seems very difficult.”
Oberto’s path to San Antonio was difficult, too. He played professionally in Argentina before an unhappy stint in Greece and time with teams in Spain. NBA teams had shown interest in him for years, but nothing had come of it. When he finally was signed by the Spurs in 2005, he was already 30.
Now he’s a star on Argentina’s favorite NBA team. Yet when he comes home to Las Varillas, people say it’s typical to see him slip into his old stance: a little shy, ever modest, and always happy to say hi.
“He stops in the street. He greets people,” said Andrea Bertagnolio, 34, a Las Varillas television journalist and acquaintance of Oberto. “He’s still a very accessible person.”
The leaders of his old club in Las Varillas are planning to broadcast the final game of the Finals in the gym so all the younger players who tread Oberto’s well-worn path under the rims can watch together.
They’re hoping that when it’s over, Oberto, who already has won an Olympic gold medal and a championship in Europe, will have an NBA title ring as well.