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Interview
4 March 2018 2.00 h

Carme Lluveras

“Being competitive isn’t bad. It is how we play, one against the other”

I cannot live without stress; I find it so boring. As long as you know how to control it, stress can be a blessingIt is not an issue of male sexism, but rather that the male way of thinking is not ready. At least not for us to be seen as coaches, or for that matter as managers or heads of departments!

Carme Llu­veras is a woman who trans­mits pas­sion. She says she likes being in charge, and she’s shown that she knows how to han­dle re­spon­si­bil­ity. She was one of the most suc­cess­ful women’s bas­ket­ball coaches and broke taboos by be­com­ing the first woman to join the coach­ing staff of an elite sports team. She now works in the media and teaches a mas­ters in sports jour­nal­ism at the Blan­querna uni­ver­sity. This in­ter­view first ap­peared on El Punt Avui Tele­visió.

How did you first get started in bas­ket­ball?
I am patho­log­i­cally com­pet­i­tive. And so I thought it would be much health­ier for me to go into sport. I ac­tu­ally grad­u­ated in piano, and I stud­ied busi­ness and law. Yet, I also did all types of sports and saw that the best way to chan­nel my com­pet­i­tive po­ten­tial was through bas­ket­ball!
Why are you so com­pet­i­tive?
I don’t know, be­cause I’m not from a sporty fam­ily. It must be some­thing in my genes, a need in­side me. You hear peo­ple today talk­ing about being com­pet­i­tive as if it were a bad thing. But it isn’t! It is how we play: you need to do bet­ter than the other.
Do you like to be the best in all as­pects of life?
In every­thing, even though I know that I can’t be. But I can­not live with­out stress; I find it so bor­ing. As long as you know how to con­trol it, stress can be a bless­ing.
You once said: “So­ci­ety pro­gresses, but sport con­tin­ues to be ob­so­lete, ar­chaic and mas­cu­line... It is a sealed bub­ble.” Do you still be­lieve this?
I hoped we would make progress but no, I think things have got worse. I was not only talk­ing about men’s sport, but the whole thing, our whole en­vi­ron­ment, the world around us, and I still don’t have enough words to de­scribe it.
You don’t like to be called a for­mer coach...
A coach does not sim­ply train peo­ple. They are sports pro­fes­sion­als of a thou­sand dif­fer­ent types. At the base of it all is knowl­edge, and the ex­pe­ri­ence of train­ing peo­ple, but you can also be a man­ager or a sports min­is­ter. I am now a sports an­a­lyst, mainly of bas­ket­ball, but I also do a foot­ball talk show. It is about hav­ing a base that serves many pur­poses.
You trained a men’s team in the EBA league and you were on the Uni­caja coach­ing staff in the ACB league, but you have never been the head coach of an elite men’s team. Is that just be­cause you are a woman?
At the time I was sur­prised, de­spite my pro­fes­sional as­pi­ra­tions. I think that in bas­ket­ball, and in sport in gen­eral, I was not ready for it. I thought that if I was coach­ing women, why couldn’t I do the same with men? I think it came too early, and no one was think­ing in those terms.
Not then and not now. There is no fe­male coach in the ACB league.
It is a dis­grace. Al­though that’s not to say that just be­cause a woman gets some­where that all the prob­lems will be solved. The world needs to change so that women can reach where they are try­ing to get. We are talk­ing about pro­fes­sion­als. It is not an issue of male sex­ism, but rather that the male way of think­ing is not ready. At least not for us to be seen as coaches, or for that mat­ter as man­agers or heads of de­part­ments! We have to do al­most every­thing be­hind the scenes.
Do you think that the sealed bub­ble you say sur­rounds sport can be bro­ken?
I am re­signed to it. The world of men is not ready, even though peo­ple get of­fended when I say that. But they do not un­der­stand, they do not re­alise. If you take two world cham­pi­ons, a man and a woman, jour­nal­ists will usu­ally only ask for the man’s opin­ion. They don’t even re­alise that she might have some­thing to say, too. They find it hard, even if the woman has the same knowl­edge, prepa­ra­tion and ex­pe­ri­ence.
Is there a way to change this?
I have al­ways thought it is a case of them not re­al­is­ing. Yet, I’ve come to think that they could be doing it on pur­pose, be­cause it favours their po­si­tion of priv­i­lege in this world. How can we change it? In bas­ket­ball, you say things once, then twice, and the third time you en­force it. It is the law that has to be en­forced...
You said once that your pre­fer to train men over women...
I’m a woman and I know what we are like. We are best at re­flect­ing and when it comes to giv­ing or­ders you have to al­most come up with a doc­toral the­sis to train women. If you don’t ex­plain every­thing, you won’t do a good job. That’s tir­ing. When you train men, you need the same things you need with women: cred­i­bil­ity, au­then­tic­ity when it comes to the work, for every­one to re­spect you for what you know. But, you can con­vince a man in five min­utes.
What is the dif­fer­ence be­tween how men and women take charge?
I don’t think there is a mas­cu­line or fem­i­nine way of being in charge, but it’s also true that per­haps the pat­terns we have al­ways fol­lowed are more mas­cu­line, and so we have prob­a­bly copied them and adopted some male ways of doing things.
Can you imag­ine a fe­male coach in charge of Barça, for ex­am­ple?
No. I think we are going back­wards, and I re­ally doubt that it will hap­pen.
The UN says that in 2030 half of all de­ci­sion-mak­ing posts will be oc­cu­pied by women. You don’t be­lieve that?
Why wait 13 years? That’s why I don’t be­lieve it! Let’s do it now. We are al­ready show­ing that we are ca­pa­ble. If you re­ally wanted to make it hap­pen, you could do like Ice­land and pass laws to en­force equal­ity be­tween men and women. There’s no need to wait so long.
You also teach at the Blan­querna uni­ver­sity...
For the past six years, and I love it! I thought that I’d give it a try and that the next day they’d get rid of me. But no! I’m still teach­ing jour­nal­ism at Blan­querna. I thought that I could give them a hand, be­cause to know what you are talk­ing about you need to know the world of sport.
What is the se­cret to mak­ing a team work well?
First there has to be hard work, at the max­i­mum and most de­mand­ing level. There must also be pas­sion for the work. If the com­po­nents of the team do not have this, you have to in­still it in them. From here on, you begin build­ing a sort of pyra­mid to which you add all the pieces you need to achieve suc­cess. I think that one of the things that is most im­por­tant in a team is re­spect; with­out it noth­ing works. Yet, it’s some­thing that is hard to achieve, even in real life.

In­ter­view

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