Pepa Senante
The first captain of the women’s basketball team earned 600 pesetas throughout her career with Spain.
On June 16, 1963, the women’s team played the first game in its history. It was a friendly against Switzerland in Malgrat de Mar (Barcelona), which was sealed with a Spanish defeat (31-40). The twelve pioneers were Mabel Martínez, Isabel Gómez de Frutos, Antonia Gimeno, Mari Cruz Hurtado de Mendoza, Teresa Pérez Villota, Montserrat Bobé, María Luisa Rosales, Angelines Gómez, Margarita Tamayo, Isabel Díez de Lastra, Luisa Puentes and Pepa Senante, who she also holds the honor of being the first captain of the national team.
Pepa (Madrid, 1943) was more into roller hockey, but at her school, Jesús María, there were no coaches and the nuns were not happy that a man was leading a women’s team, so they convinced her to try out for basketball. A few years later she was chosen to participate in a concentration in the Almudena, with people from Barcelona, the Picadero, Valencia, Granada… and from there came the first Selection, an amateur team in which they had to return the kits. The shoes and socks were paid by the players and they did not charge: Pepa’s only gain (she retired at 28) was the 600 pesetas that the Federation paid her as a diet in her last game with Spain, a friendly against Australia . During her career she played at CREFF (Reunited Colleges of Female Physical Education) and her trips were marathon, all night on a train to get, for example, to Vigo. Each one brought something to snack on: omelette, sandwiches… and the coconuts with condensed milk that Pepa’s mother always made. A whim for the first captain of the Spanish National Team.
#pioneers #Spanish #sport