When you were loafing around and going out on weekends, and getting drunk on Friday and sleeping it off on Sunday, I was on the courts, with your brothers, or maybe with your children. Maybe even with you, before ...
When you were loafing around and going out on weekends, and getting drunk on Friday and sleeping it off on Sunday, I was on the courts, with your brothers, or maybe with your children. Maybe even with you, before your parents let you go out.
I have spent entire weeks, including weekends, and also Sundays and holidays, since I was 17 years old, teaching handball. Teaching you to respect the opponent, the referee. Teaching you how to lose and, above all, how to win.
While you worked extra hours to buy a house in the countryside, or an apartment on the beach; you left your children with me on the courts of the Poli, the Sanjurjo or the Benito Méndez. I took care of them, I educated them and I never charged you a penny. What's more, it cost me money.
Even more, you probably don't know that the Caja de Ahorros de Tenerife seized three thousand euros from my salary from the Arrecife City Council in the months of May and June for a loan that the Club requested at the end of the last 20th century, which Agapito and I guaranteed, so that the "San José" teams could travel, pay their gratification to the handball school monitors, and to be able to buy balls and equipment, and pay the fees.
And, to all this, I have never charged anything from "San José". To this day, not a single penny, not a single euro. Except when, in the 2004-2005 season, I put my national coach title at the disposal of the first division team, which forced me to travel, so that Quique Martín could be the coach; who, by the way, had one of the best seasons of the club, with the unquestionable contribution, within the court, of David de la Hoz.
I don't have a house. I don't have a car. I don't have land, except for what stays on my nails for a few hours when I train children on uncovered courts, or when I have been in camps or beach handball tournaments. I have no savings. I have no shares, or a pension plan. I don't have a bicycle. I only have an Acer laptop, which is good, an Oki multifunction and an Appel iPad II.
I also have a lot of handball books and publications, several medals, plaques and trophies from my adventures in sports and a lot of folders with planning, match notes, data and files (with their photos) of a lot of players, and a lot of good memories.
I also think I have a good list of good friends, whom I see little; who almost never ask me for something and whom I very rarely ask for something.
Except for this, I have nothing else. But, I'll tell you something. I consider myself much richer than the fathers and mothers of the many children and young people that, since I was 17 years old, I have trained, while their parents allowed themselves to work a few more hours to earn some extra money and build a house in the countryside, buy a good car or go on a trip far away, from time to time.
But, you know what I'm telling you? That I live happily! That I love what I do! That I have never "worked" in my life, because etymologically "work" comes from the Latin "tres palos", which the Romans put on slaves so that their tasks would be more painful and, therefore, the term "work" has a certain connotation of action that is carried out with pain, and so that you are remunerated for it. I have never "worked" because everything I have done I did with pleasure and never, although like everyone I have my "vices", I have discussed the remuneration that I intended to be given for the things I have done. What's more, if I can, I don't plan to work in my life.
I live happily and that is priceless. And, in addition, no matter what they tell me, no matter what they do to me, I will continue to live happily. With my bad moments, like anyone, but happy.
From my cousin Paloma I learned a word, a quality, that I did not know: "resilience", which according to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, means "Human capacity to assume limit situations with flexibility and overcome them.". In addition, according to Wikipedia, it is a concept that in psychology is understood as "the capacity of a person or group to continue projecting into the future despite destabilizing events, difficult living conditions and traumas, sometimes serious". And, it also says that "resilience is a common response and a healthy adjustment to adversity".
I have acquired that capacity and that is why I am happy. I hope to continue being so. I think I will achieve it. Come on, I'm sure!