‘Cesare Rubini court’: Olimpia Milano dedicates its parquet to the prince who made its history

A good news a few days before the start of the Serie A championship: starting next Sunday against Brescia, Olimpia Milano will play on the “Cesare Rubini Court”. The parquet of his home games will in fact be named after one of the greatest personalities in the history of world sport, who identified Olimpia, together with president Adolfo Bogoncelli, for almost thirty years of his existence.

Values

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“The values, the competitive spirit, the desire to always be at the forefront, to consider Olimpia as a family, have been handed down to us by Cesare Rubini and still today represent the principles that guide our company. Naming the playing field after him means not only remembering him, but also honoring him in what was his natural environment ”, says Giorgio Armani. Cesare Rubini won 15 league titles at Olimpia, the first five also as a player; he has won a European Cup, two Cup Winners’ Cups and an Italian Cup. With the National team, as director of the national teams sector, he won the Olympic silver in Moscow 1980 and the European gold in Nantes 1983, as well as the bronze in Stuttgart 1985 and the silver in Rome 1991. In 2004 he was admitted to the Hall of Fame in Springfield, later also in that of Fiba. Rubini, who arrived at Olimpia in 1947, is the only European sportsman to appear in the Hall of Fame of two sports, basketball and water polo. In the latter sport he won the 1948 Olympic gold in London and the bronze in 1952 in Helsinki when he was already the coach and player of Olimpia Milano. In 2023 it will also be the centenary of his birth. Rubini died on February 8, 2011. “Cesare Rubini – says his nephew Giorgio, former vice president of Olimpia Milano – boasts the unrivaled honor of being part of two different Hall of Fame in two sports, basketball and water polo, which they could be more different and have only hands in common. If he could see us he would be happy and moved to receive this honor for which I and the whole Rubini family would like to thank Olimpia Milano, and in particular Giorgio Armani, Leo Dell’Orco and Ettore Messina ”.

Fields in the States

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Naming a playing field to honor a coach is an unprecedented fact in Europe, but often practiced in the United States. Colleges that have done so include UCLA (Nellie and John Wooden Court), Duke (Coach K Court), North Carolina (Roy Williams Court in the Dean Smith Center), Florida (Billy Donovan Court), Arizona (Lute and Bobbi Olson Court), Georgetown (John Thompson Court), Davidson (Bob McKillop Court) and many more.