Days of great closeness, these between the end of June and the beginning of July, between AS Estra Pistoia Basket 2000 and the United States. In fact, since last week, six students from Gonzaga University who are attending the MASAA – Master’s in Sports & Athletic Administration, have arrived in Italy to get to know the reality of an Italian professional basketball club up close.
In these days they are carrying out lessons as part of the “Italian Sport and Culture” course, held by Professor Marco Bracci (sociologist and teacher at important North American study programs in Italy, including the prestigious Gonzaga University in Florence) useful for understanding how the world of sport was born, developed and gradually evolved in Italy, also placing emphasis on the differences with the American reality as regards everything that is off-field.
At the same time, the six students also participated in meetings with some members of the club starting from the head of the youth sector Cristiano Biagini in order to delve deeper into the role of children and young people within Pistoia Basket Junior and what the link is with the first team. Subsequently there was a moment of discussion with the communications manager Saverio Melegari to talk about how the activity carried out by Pistoia Basket is promoted externally, both in the city but also at a regional and national level, the relationships with LBA , with the main television broadcasters giving media coverage to the red and white world and communication through social media.
Finally, the third meeting was with the general manager Ettore Saracca to learn more about the economic and management dynamics of the club, from the relationship with partners, sponsors, institutions to the initiatives created off the parquet and how this world fits together, in a decisive way, with the results that come from the field. The six students will remain in the city until next week to learn even better all the facets of the Pistoia Basket world.
These, however, are also the hours of the reverse journey: at dawn today, Wednesday 26 June, the men’s and women’s teams – together with the DLF Udine team and belonging to the Pistoia Basket Project – left for the United States to take will take part, as the only Italian teams, at the Spokane Hoopfest 2024, the largest outdoor 3vs3 basketball tournament in the world which takes place in the city home to Gonzaga University, further strengthening this synergy officially born last September and which is becoming increasingly important and profitable.
These are those who will take the field with the Pistoia Basket Junior shirt: the men’s team is made up of Federico Stoch, Luca Santi and Edoardo Grieco (accompanied by Cristiano Biagini); the women’s team features Sofia Fattorini, Giulia Beconcini and Ludovica Cappellini (accompanied by Giulia Bonelli).
