MAURIZIO PRATESI TELLS HIS STORY
I was born in 1975 in Maunula, Helsinki. Sports has been a part of my life since I was young – first by playing football in fields and yards, then in various clubs and in different sports disciplines. I was athletic when I was a child, of which I can perhaps thank my good genes from my Jamaican father’s side. Football was the first sport I ended up playing in a club. It was called Maunulan Pallo. I tried many sports before finding my passion – handball at Kiffen, ice hockey at Oulunkylän Kiekko-Kerho, boxing at Viipurin Nyrkkeilijät. None of them felt like my sport. Maybe at the age of 11, I found basketball – I went to my first basketball practice wearing boxing shoes, which my friends still joke about.
My first basketball club was Helsingin Kiri-60 that played in Maunula at the time. The club played in the men’s first division, but the junior activities were very small. Often, it was just the coach, me, and the coach’s son who were present at training sessions. By the age of 12 or 13, I was already training with adults – I had to develop myself quickly to get used to the physical side of the game. At 13, I decided to start to take basketball seriously. I practiced twice a day – once independently, once with the team – every day, during weekdays and weekends. It’s hard to say where this inner passion for basketball came from.
Basketball quickly became an important community for me. The people in the sport accepted me and welcomed me, and I realized I was quite skilled at it. At that time, Maunula had various social problems, substance abuse, and the like. There was certainly a risk that I could have ended up in those circles, as some of my peers unfortunately did. Although this may sound like a cliché straight from American TV shows, sports was always a safe haven for me, where I felt good, and it helped to keep me on the right path. I was able to grow there in peace.
I first joined Kiri-60’s adult men’s team at around 15 years old. I also played in the youth national team and was selected as the best player in the Nordic Championships for A junior level boys. I broke through and was one of the top scorers in the first division. From there, I moved to Forssan Alku that played in the men’s basketball league. In my second season at Forssan Alku, I had a breakthrough performance with 16 points on average in the league, and also joined the men’s national team. At that time, there was still a division in Finnish sports between clubs of TUL (Työväen Urheiluliitto, Workers Sports Federation) and SVUL (Suomen Valtakunnan Urheiluliitto, Finnish Sports Federation). Forssan Alku was a workers’ club, as was Kiri-60. I always played in workers’ clubs. For someone who grew up in Helsinki, Forssa felt like moving abroad. But soon my career continued abroad for real. In 1995, the European Court of Justice’s so-called Bosman ruling allowed players to move more freely from one country to another within Europe in all team sports. So in 1996, I was recruited to Uppsala, Sweden.
I played in Sweden for only one season. In the following year, 1997, I went to Treviso, Italy, to play in their ‘summer league.’ The league was established after the Bosman ruling – it gathered players from many countries looking for a club and provided them a showcase. Dirk Bauermann, one of Germany’s legendary basketball coaches, noticed me there. Bauermann recruited me to his team Bayer Leverkusen, where I played for three years. After that, I spent two more years in Germany, one in Bonn and one in Oldenburg. I brought home two Bundesliga silver medals. Abroad, I could focus solely on basketball, being a full professional – in Finland, most of my teammates either studied or worked alongside basketball. Before me, only two Finns had played in Germany, and the attitude was perhaps similar to what it might be in ice hockey if an Italian came to play in the Finnish ice hockey league. Initially, there was some doubt about my level, but that quickly disappeared when I could prove my worth. Nowadays, there are some Finnish players and coaches in the Germany’s top league, and I feel that I helped pave the way for them. I returned to play in Finland for a few more years.
In sports, results matter – it equalizes social differences that way. Often, people from lower social classes may feel that they can’t achieve the same as others. But in sports, you can show your worth through performance. I remember, for example, junior level games that I played against Tapiolan Honka – we came from the Maunula suburb, they came from a clearly better standard of living. But in sports, we could challenge them and show our worth in our own way.
I have rarely encountered racist treatment in basketball, and even when I have, it has mostly happened abroad. My background was not a problem in Finnish basketball. Basketball community had already been accustomed to players with different appearances because American reinforcements had played in Finland for decades. And they really were reinforcements, top players in our country. Looking different was maybe even a positive thing in basketball circles. Perhaps that’s why basketball was an easy community for me to join and participate in. Sometimes my opponents in junior matches asked me if we already had American reinforcements in juniors. I could respond to that, that no, I’m a Finn.
Basketball has long been accustomed to people of different appearances; it is such a global sport with top players from every corner of the world. Perhaps through this, it has been a pioneer in equality and anti-racism compared to many other sports. But I know that many others have had worse experiences in my sport. I have been in a fortunate position by being born in Finland, speaking Finnish well, and growing up in Finnish society. In everyday life outside of basketball, there have certainly been also negative experiences. As a child it helped that my three years older brother looked after me. He had authority and ensured I wasn’t bullied.
After my career ended, it was clear to me that I wanted to do things in my next job that would improve the position of multicultural children and young people in Finland. I have worked in different organizations for almost 20 years, founded my own associations, and created several programs/projects that promote the equality of children and young people. There are many children in Finland at risk of marginalization and who can end up on bad paths, and I want to help them in their lives. It is my life’s work.
There is a lot of good in our sports system but also problems. The system is based on clubs organizing competitive sports activities, and the activities are largely funded by parents – unlike in the United States, where schools mainly organize sports activities. In Finland, many children and young people are left out of competitive activities simply because their parents can’t afford to pay for their child’s hobby. This happens even in sports that are relatively cheap compared to others – like football or basketball. It’s not the fault of individual clubs or parents, but a problem created by the development of sports structures. Clubs are mainly funded by middle-class parents who want the best for their children and can afford to pay for competitive sports. Children from lower social classes cannot get involved as easily anymore – they are left with low-threshold clubs organized by cities and municipalities, which are good but don’t offer the opportunity to compete. It is unfair to them and very bad for elite sports. In most major sports, the majority of top athletes have risen from disadvantaged backgrounds. The rising costs in youth sports must be monitored more closely, and better ways to include the less fortunate must be found. In my current job at Pikku-Kettu Basket association, we offer free competitive basketball for children in Havukoski, Vantaa.
In sports, demanding is also caring; competition doesn’t need to be demonized. Competition created in the wrong way can be traumatizing; I understand well that many have been traumatized by poor coaching or physical education as young people. But when handled pedagogically correctly, competition teaches important skills like perseverance, teamwork, dealing with losses, and overall resilience. These are beneficial things in sports and other areas of life.
Maurizio Pratesi