ace3g
04-19-2012, 12:15 AM
The French National Institute of Sport and Physical Education (INSEP) sits in a lush forest of oak and chestnut trees just west of Paris. The academy serves as a unique training center in Europe, a boarding school, if you will, for gifted athletes.
Twenty French Olympic medal winners from the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing are products of INSEP. The academy produced 16 Olympic medalists at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.
One of France’s greatest female basketball players, Elisabeth Riffiod, developed her game at INSEP. Decades later, Elisabeth enrolled her son there as well: Boris Diaw.
“I remember when we were doing the visit at INSEP,” Diaw says, “and my mother was saying, ‘Oh yeah, this building was there, but that building was not.’ She had so many memories.”
One memory in particular stood out. It was at INSEP that Elisabeth met a skilled high jumper from Senegal, a man who would become her son’s father, Issa Diaw. Fifteen-year-old Boris listened to the stories and toured the campus, eyes filling with wonder. So many great athletes, so few of them basketball players.
At the time of his tour, no Frenchman had ever played in the NBA, and Diaw had no reason to believe he’d be among the first. But after enrolling in INSEP, he met a brash kid undaunted by the French void in NBA history. Tony Parker.
“Tony knew he was going to make it,” Diaw says. “There were no French guys in the NBA. None. It was a long shot to make it. But you couldn’t tell that to Tony. He had his mind set.”
A friendship formed. Imaginations ran wild. Fifteen years later, they share a reality not even Parker dared to dream: two former French phenoms playing for the same NBA team with a chance to win a championship.
http://www.nba.com/spurs/features/120418_rodriguez_diaw
Twenty French Olympic medal winners from the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing are products of INSEP. The academy produced 16 Olympic medalists at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.
One of France’s greatest female basketball players, Elisabeth Riffiod, developed her game at INSEP. Decades later, Elisabeth enrolled her son there as well: Boris Diaw.
“I remember when we were doing the visit at INSEP,” Diaw says, “and my mother was saying, ‘Oh yeah, this building was there, but that building was not.’ She had so many memories.”
One memory in particular stood out. It was at INSEP that Elisabeth met a skilled high jumper from Senegal, a man who would become her son’s father, Issa Diaw. Fifteen-year-old Boris listened to the stories and toured the campus, eyes filling with wonder. So many great athletes, so few of them basketball players.
At the time of his tour, no Frenchman had ever played in the NBA, and Diaw had no reason to believe he’d be among the first. But after enrolling in INSEP, he met a brash kid undaunted by the French void in NBA history. Tony Parker.
“Tony knew he was going to make it,” Diaw says. “There were no French guys in the NBA. None. It was a long shot to make it. But you couldn’t tell that to Tony. He had his mind set.”
A friendship formed. Imaginations ran wild. Fifteen years later, they share a reality not even Parker dared to dream: two former French phenoms playing for the same NBA team with a chance to win a championship.
http://www.nba.com/spurs/features/120418_rodriguez_diaw