UNCLE JIMMY WINS THE SILVER MEDAL, 72 YEARS LATER

Last week I wrote about my late great-uncle James Blanco of Manhattan by way of Alecante, Spain. He was a member of the Spanish National basketball team that was to represent Spain in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Hitler's Germany, Nazi Central and a planned showcase for their imaginary Master Race. Well, Uncle Jimmy's trip to the Olympics was derailed by the Spanish Civil War and Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy was puntured by a poor black American, the son of a sharecropper and grandson of slaves. Jesse Owens set world records winning four gold medals in track and field and was famously snubbed by Hitler. Two years later, another black American, world heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis put the final nail in that coffin by annihilating German boxer Max Shmeling in less than one round to avenge his only loss in the ring.

More than any expectation of Olympic glory, Uncle Jimmy would have liked to have represented his nation on the world stage and tested himself and his team by competing at the very highest level. He also said he would have enjoyed shaking the hand of Mr. Owens and witnessing the public unmasking of Fascism as bald-faced racism, something he knew about first hand. His own nation was being shredded by 3 fascist armies, that of eventual victor Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his two asshole buddy allies, Mussolini's Italian army and Hitler's vaunted Luftwaffe.

On the other side was the Loyalist forces consisting of Spanish armies aided materially and monetarily by the Soviet Union and Mexico, with a smattering of international volunteers including some Americans called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. In a rehearsal for World War 2, these armies turned this latest in a series of fairly limited internal Spanish civil wars into a major modern conflict costing 500,000 Spanish lives and causing untold destruction on a scale never seen before.

Well, the world would grow accustomed to large-scale destruction before very long but without a devastated and traumatized Spain as a participant. Good thing for Franco, too, since he was the only European Fascist leader to survive the 1940s. James Blanco fought under his flag and also against him, since the alternative to forced conscription was the firing squad. Most Spaniards cared little for either faction and wanted only peace for sunny Spain. So my pragmatic uncle saw fierce combat on both sides of a war he despised and left Spain forever when the war was over, relinquishing all claims to his property and assets as the price of making an exit from a nation ruled until 1975 by Fascism.

He kept his vow to never return to Spain while Franco drew breath and found happiness and fulfillment in America. He still followed sports and fell in love with American football, becoming a very knowledgeable and astute fan. He of course followed basketball as well, being proud to be a part of the Spanish National Team that laid the groundwork for basketball to become a very popular international sport not only in Europe, but globally. He was under no illusions that by missing the 1936 Olympics he missed out on winning a gold medal, realizing that the American team would take home the top spot in the game they had invented. And they did, outdoing Canada by a score that seems like a typo, 19-8.

The game back then was somewhat different, with guys like my 5 foot, 8 inch uncle being stars, before it became the incredibly fast-paced, physically punishing and high-scoring game of giants. While he lamented that average men could no longer effectively compete, he marveled at the incredible skill level of the modern basketball stars and the modern methods of conditioning all sports afforded their athletes. Never a bitter man despite living through some very traumatic history, he wondered how his team would have fared in 1936, perhaps being the one team that could give the Americans a tough game, pushing the champions and in turn themselves to the highest levels of skill and achievement.

Well, that's exactly what just happened in the gold medal game in Beijing. The American National team, made up of fifteen of the most talented basketball players on the planet, the cream of this nation's professional stars, had been waltzing though opponent after opponent in a ridiculously easy march towards Olympic gold, like gods and giants toying with ordinary mortals. No one gave them much of a battle, including Spain in an early-round 119-82 loss. Fast forward a week to the championship game, and Spain, having done their homework and formulated a solid game plan, came very close to an upset of America's latest Dream Team and fought them tooth and nail down to the wire in an exciting and closely contested game of round ball, the Americans only pulling it out in the final two minutes. It was basketball at it's very zenith, the very best wrested from each competitor.

The Spaniards were magnificent, to use one of my Uncle Jimmy's favorite words, and showed the world why the Spanish National Team has become a powerhouse on the international basketball scene. This tradition was started 72 years ago by a team that was prepared to compete in basketball in its debut as an Olympic sport in 1936. Young men like my Uncle Jimmy were its stars and sports pioneers, forgotten by history in the fog of a decade of hellish warfare that started with the Spanish Civil War. Wherever he is, I'm sure Uncle Jimmy is pleased with the young men who kept the tradition alive and wears his long overdue Silver Medal proudly, perhaps thinking that someday they will unseat the American giants and wear the gold. As Uncle Jimmy said: "One never knows..."