PAVIA. «University studies have given me a working method and this has often helped me to get out of the confusion generated by moments of crisis». Ettore Messina, 63, current coach of Olimpia Milano, 63, one of the most titled European coaches and guest of honor at the inauguration of the university sports year in the Aula Magna of the University of Pavia, sent many messages from Pavia to university students. «It is important to have teachers – adds Messina – some character or university professor who is important in your history of students, who can be an example, as Sandro Gamba was for me, who taught me so much, and Tonino Zorzi, then many others, but these two especially. I want to wish the kids present, beyond talent, to find someone who believes in you, just like they believed in me right away so much that they assigned me tasks that I honestly would not have assigned myself, at 23 being in charge of the Virtus Bologna nursery and at 29 always put me on the bench in Bologna».
For Messina, basketball is more than a passion: «I don’t consider it a job, but a great passion and I hope that for the students it is the same with what they are studying. The problem is being able to keep the problems that arise in the gym out of the house and unfortunately I can’t always do this. I have to congratulate the prize-winners and Monica Boggioni for her medals at the Paralympics ».
After the proposal of an honorary degree in Messina, the rector Francesco Svelto donated the University of Pavia tie to the coach, asking him to wear it at future Final four. Previously Svelto himself had said: «The increase in foreign students here it is the highest in Lombardy. We acquired the former Don Bosco college to use it both as a residence and as sports facilities. For those who want to practice sport there is a great treasure: the Cus Pavia».
The president of Cus Stefano Ramat explained: «We are the largest sports reality in the area, a multi-sports club with nine sections: sport climbing, athletics, canoeing, rowing, fitness, volleyball, rugby, fencing, archery, to which multisport for the little ones and adapted physical activity for disabled or pathological athletes are added. In the sporting year that ended we exceeded 3200 members, a new record. In these three years we have expanded the offer of sports activities with new proposals such as touch rugby, ultimate frisbee and women’s soccer. The Sport and suburbs tender financed the renovation of the PalaCus – he concluded -. We will open three new covered fields for the game of padel and one for beach volleyball, a new gym for athletic training, a 7-a-side synthetic soccer field».