“In small towns we are used to asking for everything to be done, but we must not only complain, we must also contribute something to society, get involved.” This is how forceful Rositta Rizza is, promoter, along with her husband, Juan Alexis García, of the El Montillo Sports Club, founded in 2016 with twelve athletes. The work carried out in the last seven years has had a reward that goes beyond sporting successes. Right now, The Club has ten girls’ teams, one boys’ team and another mixed team.. Aside from the successes achieved in recent years, which have led it to become the only women’s volleyball team in the North zone included in the insular A1 league – in the children’s and cadet categories last season -, its players feel integral part of a group that has surpassed the sporting field. The feeling of belonging to the team implies responsibility, camaraderie and integration, which are values that must be instilled among young people in all areas of life, not only in sport.
The idea of forming this club arose from Rositta and Alexis’ need to look for sports alternatives for their daughters, beyond the basketball or the soccer. «They preferred volleyball and we needed to federate them to be able to compete. We thus decided to found the Club, hiring a professional coach. In a short time it aroused interest among schoolmates and soon we had twenty girls. Today we have surpassed that number and there are already 125 athletes who train in the IES pavilion of La Matanza, in facilities provided by the City Council, which has also helped us through the corresponding annual subsidies,” says Rositta, who has She even had to obtain the coaching title to reinforce that work in games and training.
Although the competitive spirit is what manages to win games, for this group of girls it has been very important tosocial and collaborative aspect. The important thing is everyone’s participation and that no one feels excluded for playing better or worse. «In this way we try to avoid frustration and enhance self-esteem at an age and in a context in which, perhaps, due to the idiosyncrasy of living in a smaller environment, it is sometimes very difficult to feel accepted by others. Volleyball is a sport in which technical skills are more important than physical ones.so there is no exclusion here and each player has her place, regardless of height, body composition, etc.
The daughters Rositta and Alexis no longer play for this Club. The eldest, Irene, has gone to study outside the Island, although she continues to practice this sport, and the youngest, Berta, aged fourteen, has been signed by Hidramar Gran Canaria and plays in Super League 2, which is equivalent to a second division in football. She has also been part of the Canary Islands team in the children’s category. Sports are a fundamental part of her life and, therefore, she did not hesitate to leave that family environment to combine her studies with what she likes most. Sport involves discipline and sacrifice, but the reward is undoubtedly worth it. Without her daughters in the club, Rositta and her husband are considering a replacement on the board, although they recognize that this is also her family and they consider the players as their “other daughters.” They celebrate their triumphs with them and encourage them in their defeats, but it is also important that other parents get involved. “It is a job that we have been doing selflessly, because it is very gratifying to do things for others and see the results in the happiness of these girls.”
María Isabel, 17 years old, studies second level of Baccalaureate at IES La Matanza and, for four years, has belonged to the Club. I approached this sport because there weren’t many people and it caught my attention. He trains three days a week for an hour and a half and does not plan to stop when he starts studying at the University. For this young woman from Matanzas, sport has helped her develop social skills linked, above all, to communication and collaborative work in all areas. “Sport teaches us to work as a team.”
Cristo García has been coaching these teams since the beginning of the Club and highlights, among the keys to success, the family spirit and “the interest we have in seeing the girls have fun, beyond winning games.” Cristo also defends the need to support sport in small municipalities, although parents always want their daughters to end up on big teams without taking into account that, perhaps, in these environments the treatment of the player is closer and the attention is more personalized. In this sense, it is worth highlighting that the success of the Club has already crossed the border of the municipality and there are more and more requests from girls from other places in the North who want to be part of the Club.
The Club is called El Montillo after the park with this name in La Matanza. Its logo represents the beetle that was found in the area (Pimelia Radula Radula), included in the catalog of endangered species and whose discovery led to delaying the execution of the park works. For those who have not visited this space, it is the largest green area in the municipality and occupies an area of more than 57,000 square meters with a multitude of fruit trees, vegetation, Canarian pines, palm trees and other endemic species. It is divided into different areas with a lake with a waterfall, a playground, an outdoor amphitheater, a bio-healthy park so that older people can play sports, and other facilities such as a skatepark or a climbing wall. The sculpture Los Agricultores, located in this natural enclave, pays tribute to the farmers of this municipality in the north of Tenerife. One of the proposals put forward by the Club is enable an area in the park to practice beach volleyball.
Like this, there will be many other examples of selfless involvement of anonymous people who give their time to improving the society in which we live. Caring about our young people and dedicating their time to a group of girls so that they feel part of a community through sport is investing in their future. In a current context full of complaints, criticism and demands, the only thing left to do is applaud the work of this couple so that they can set an example and let’s analyze for a moment what we can do to improve our closest environment. Good ideas are sure to arise.