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A journey to the infinite Jesús Castañón Rodríguez
Volver... con la frente marchita, In December 2001, twenty years were reached since the idea based on the fact that sporting language could draw attention to itself. An important date in order to be lived without nostalgia nor parties. A relevant date in order to remember the wind’s whisper, the rain’s melodious sound….Also it’s a date in order to taste the hot coffee with the sight firmly fixed on the Bay of Biscay and in order to pass again the path which will never come back. 1981-1991 It’s the story based on the change of an idea, which goes beyond memories, sorrows or triumphs with sport, an excellent company. It didn’t ever disappoint due to its practical, free and intelligent nature. It didn’t ever check the exuberance or the desires for creativity. These twenty years’ run has its origin in 1970, when the author discovered the sport’s value, courage during a medical convalescence for several months. The commentators’ dynamic voices in the broadcasting of the Real Sporting from Gijón’s football matches gave him the necessary energy for overcoming the forced rest after an illness being six years old. The memory in black and white Childhood and adolescence are memories of a life in black and white. White like the clearness of the Spanish light in the natal Palencia, and black like the coal from the coalfields in grandmother’s house, which had a site, and under it there was a gallery where the explosions of the blastholes made the floor thundered. They
were happy times, but for sport Sundays in Moreda de Aller
and Asturias were days full of explosion without control and
magic. Days of explosion and happiness due to the goals of
the Santiago de Aller’s team in the football pitch named
La Arenina, which the author watched free from a forest placed
opposite to a peculiar stadium which was in a coal slag heap,
and where two rivers came together. Days of magic because
the world stopped before a ball, four books, two stones or
a jersey which turned a street, a piece of road or a threshing
floor into a scope of team spirit, admiration for creativity
and for effectiveness unreservedly. As a child, football was
the place where simplicity, freedom, humbleness, fight…
were transformed into abilities in order to win through adversities,
to go beyond and also in order to survive arbitrariness. 1981-1986: Original idea and times of documentation A spark of water The change of football as entertainment into a possible working matter started in December 19, 1981, after receiving a spark of water in the Asturian city named Gijón in an evening very favorable to go for a walk near the Bay of Biscay in the emblematic and dreamy beach: San Lorenzo. The author went together with his father and his brother, just when the sun was on the point of setting, when in a few minutes a favorable atmosphere is created in order to associate ideas with spark between the cold of the marine breeze, the rumor of waters and an special brilliance of the waves of the sea. Two comments were exchanged in his mind: one of them concerning a historian’s affirmation and also based on the fact that he was going to carry out an investigation about the Spanish football, and the another one was an editor’s assertion based on the better consideration which sport can get by itself, such consideration surpasses other worries in the citizen in the street, to such an extent that sport has become a symbol of force in our daily life which beats other informative areas considered more serious. That initial spark of water became a certainty after the football match Real Sporting-Cadiz and also the Christmas present of a very interesting book: El deporte rey, by Desmond Morris. The author grew up during 1982 with the festive surrounding of the World Cup’s final stage, which took place in Spain, and in 1983 he generated his first university fieldwork: Lengua y fútbol. Mundial 82. That study was very pleasing, and the idea was taking new paths, courses and it was also growing thanks to his parents and brothers’ understanding. He definitely settled in 1985 due to the impulse which the Real Sporting from Gijón was going to give, providing technical material and also due to the author had managed to be in the final phase of the II Prize of Novel Don Balón (Mr. Ball) with a "black novel" based on sporting subject with tittle: Manzana y Nicotina. They were dates where the work’s core was placed between Madrid and Asturias, with some moral backings from Barcelona and Bilbao, and where the fundamental role concerned Gijón. 1986-1991: Academic production In the second half of the first stage, an intense academic activity was carried out and it was combined with the journalism in Asturias and the fight for living in Madrid after finishing the degree of Hispanic Philology. The Poseidón’s strengths He went to Greece with his partners when he finished his degree course. In addition to the normal activities, it was the proper time for visiting alone other special places: the ruins in Olympia, the Delfos’ temple and stadium, and the Panatinaikós, place where the competitions of the Olympic games in 1896 were celebrated. That immersion in the Classical world got a new spark of water in a dusk at the Cape of Sunión, next to the Poseidón’s temple, the seas and athletes’ god: the taking of underground strengths in order to overcome the difficulties, doubts and the lack of understanding, and also the fact of feeling the winds’ audacity. In November, 1987 the minor thesis Anglicismos de fútbol en Marca (1938-1986) was read and three months later intense meetings of communications in congresses in different places started, all this set off from the University of Murcia with a labor for the Spanish Society of Linguistics. From 1986 to 1989 the fight for living in Madrid, till the author got a labor future by himself, was combined with the development of an exhaustive work based on documentation for the Real Sporting team from Gijón and the collaborations in the press from Oviedo sprinkled with humor. It was a time of pleasing memories in the Hoja del Lunes and the daily El Correo de Asturias, which bet in the most difficult moment: the first and doubtful steps. And in that autumn in 1989, everything started to take a definitive course. Madrid stayed behind with the compilation of all the necessary material, the exhausting rate of work carried on after leaving the labor duties was left behind as well, also a lot of hours of tiring and repetitive work classifying pieces of information were left behind…. A new stage to concentrate more on the work based on shaping and drafting started. Escartín and the artistic transformation of the grief In the spring in 1990, a dribble to the heart made the Asturian land welcomed the author’s father for ever and ever. He had been the main person who inoculated the author with that poison named football, sharing together a lot of evenings behind a ball and happiness on the way to El Molinón or following the Real Sporting from Gijón everywhere in the country. The author had heard (from his father) a lot of numerous stories about his part in the foundation of the team of the Triángulo Azul (Blue Triangle), about his fascination due to the Pedro Escartín’s reading of the regulations, about his adventures playing in several fields, about the Caudal of Mieres’s interest for his services…. A destiny’s dribble made him ask for a final help while he was documenting pieces of information from the El Bisturí, a José María García’s book. In these unforgettable images of the memory, the deeply moved look, after receiving a Pedro Escartín’s regulations dedicated by the international referee in 1985 in Madrid, and the memories of the last shared match, Valladolid-Sporting in February 25, 1990 in José Zorrilla stadium remain. The intense grief caused by the sudden loss and the feelings of that match had such a literary transformation that in December of that very year, he won the III Premio de Poesía Deportiva Juan Antonio Samaranch (Prize based on Sporting Poetry) in Barcelona. The first stage finished in September 1991. It was read the doctoral thesis Léxico de fútbol en la prensa deportiva española: 1938-1989 (Lexicon based on football in the Spanish sporting press: 1938-1989). 1991-2001 The second stage would have less personal nuances and more professional ones because the reached dynamism would lead to new working axis: Madrid, Asturias and Barcelona together with the academic work in Palencia and the American counterpoint of Argentina, Rio de Janeiro and the United States. 1991-1996: Books, congresses and academic subjects Once the thesis was read, the author started an intense and publishing activity, the organization of congresses and the first steps to turn the sporting language into university subjects. Publishing activity The amount of the literary prize in Barcelona was inverted wholly in an author’s elementary edition called Creación literaria y fútbol (1991), in order to get a new dissemination which allowed the author to thrive. Today, it is a classic quoted in all the bibliographies based on the Spanish football. With this volume other ones appeared such as: El humorismo español y el fútbol (1993), El lenguaje periodístico del fútbol (1993), Nuevos retos del periodismo deportivo (1994), Reflexiones lingüísticas sobre el deporte (1995), Creación literaria española sobre deporte moderno (1997, with the María Ángeles Rodríguez Arango’s contribution) and Idioma y deporte (1999). This publishing activity was complemented with the part in the collective books El español de América (1991) and El idioma español en el deporte (1994) individually and De Escuela Normal a Facultad de Educación. 150 años de innovaciones educativas en Valladolid (1998, with the María Ángeles Rodríguez Arango’s contribution) and with the elaboration of articles for ADES (Madrid, 1999-2000), Deporte Andaluz (Málaga, 1999), Notas y estudios filológicos (Pamplona, 1992) and Nueva Revista (Madrid, 2001). Among congresses Besides, they were times for being invited to participate in several congresses. The first one, in 1992, in El idioma español en el deporte, where specialists in sporting language met in order to discuss its condition and elaborate a practical handbook which was given out in the Olympic Games in Barcelona. And four years later, the participation was in the Organizing Committee of the International Congress El español en los medios de comunicación, held owing to the IV Centenary of the Valladolid City. The magic 16 and the Leman lake 1995 was a key year in order to turn the sporting language into a subject. Such possibility appeared the 16th of March, important date because it was when the newspaper from Madrid, Diario 16 included a reference to the book El lenguaje periodístico del fútbol in the article "La lengua gana por goleada"("Language wins in avalanche of goals"). The later steps got over the difficulties and it started to be given in the course 1997-1998. 1996 was definitive as far as the author’s decision is concerned due to the fact of going on with the key-note of sporting investigation. A visit to the Olympic Museum of Lausana the 2nd of November cleared up for ever all the doubts about the work which he had been carrying out since 1981. The fact of consulting all his work in the Center of Olympic studies and having in his hand almost all the books which he had edited to date created a tributary of tears to the Leman lake for two inconsolable hours. 1996-2001: Digital production and institutional collaborations The second half of the second stage became a phase of global gratitude and also a phase of institutions based on sport and language. The digital springboard In June 18, 1997 the proposal for carrying out a sports page in La Página del Idioma Español (The Web-page of the Spanish Language) appeared. The news was a challenge and an excellent chance in order to open up a new path, because the author had acceded to Internet in August 1996, and also had seen this system of work in the International and Olympic Committee’s Center of Olympic Studies, in Lausana (Switzerland). In his first steps, he developed useful studies and glossaries for people who weren’t specialists in sports, and they also started to be consulted or looked up on-line using the scroll in order to see the complete Web page, after the request carried out by a general information journalist who had to write about a match of the Davis Cup of tennis. As it was a new matter, La Página del Idioma Español, that means The Web-page of the Spanish Language summarized dynamically the creative nostalgia and the magic improvisation between mists from the Bay of Biscay, the hope or dream based on youth and the innovation of Gijón, with the features of Rio de Janeiro which have to do with charming energy, vitality, intelligent surprises and feelings which fill the heart with hopes, dreams. It created an original samba which welcomes the different tones and rhythms from the Latin-American countries in their constant struggle for reaching new sporting aims, their passionate experience and their deeply moved story. A samba which nowadays sings the original development of the information about the sporting language without giving up rigor. A samba which releases its traditional resorts and also resorts based on the new technologies, a samba which thinks about the main features which make it special and a samba which distinguishes register levels in its experience as practice, organized activity in associations and mass spectacles. A samba which appraises the differences between sporting language and the standard usage of language, analyzing the coexistence of its innovative tendencies and also purist ones, without resorting to disqualification. And besides, a samba which exerts a respectful look with sport in order to turn it into a scope of observation and analysis based on the linguistic tendencies and the most current ones. The sporting spot made up the main successes and experiences in a romantic art based on matches between the life’s unpleasantness. It was thought in Latin-American language, with eleven working lines where the peals of surdos (bass drums), caixas (drums),and tamborims from the Novel Prizes of Literature, the friction’s groans from la cuica and the idiomatic institutions or Universities’ reco-reco, the sportsmen/women’s metallic tones from the agogô (double handbell), suppoters’ cavaquinho rhythm and the communication announcers’ puxador’s timbres (soloist voice) were interwoven, they were reinforced and contrasted each other till they could get carried away towards euphoria and even succeed in arriving further off, further up and stronger in fantasy and the emotion of language. This style generated articles in Argentina, Brazil and the United States. To be exact, in Apuntes… (New York, 1998), Idiomanía (Buenos Aires, 1999), La Página del Idioma Español (Rio de Janeiro, 1997-2001), Lecturas: Educación Física y Deportes (Buenos Aires, 1998-2001), Neuróticos.com (San Diego, 2000), Nutrición, Deporte y Fitness (Buenos Aires, 2001) and Weblinguas (Sâo Paulo, 2000). The warm "Frío" de Janeiro Between 1998 and 2001, the effort would increase in international recognition as reference material in congresses based on European collaboration about specialized terminology, as reference source for research workers, as fulcrum in subjects from the Pontifical University in Salamanca and in courses based on doctorate from the Complutense University in Madrid and the University in Valladolid, and also as a virtual resort in web-pages based on educational resorts of Spanish language and also based on translators from French and English language into Spanish one. Also a new step towards new objectives appeared : the creation of a course based on doctorate "El idioma español del deporte en los medios de comunicación" "The Spanish language of sport in mass media", which includes two years for the study of the traditional mass media and new technologies. In summer of 1999, a destiny’s dribble led the author to Gijón, to several collaborations in the Río de la Plata and also it led him to Rio de Janeiro. The 18th of August was a day with zero degrees in the southern winter. That span of life was more "Frío" (cold) de Janeiro than ever and in the desert beach of Copacabana, the author knew for certain that the best thing has yet to be conquered, and he definitely started the electronic page Idioma y deporte, with web address http://www.idiomaydeporte.com. The experience accumulated in the coordination of the Sports Page from La Página del Idioma Español (The page of the Spanish Language) (Rio de Janeiro, 1997-2001), the giving of services in the Adviser Council from the digital magazine Lecturas: Educación Física y Deportes (Buenos Aires, 1998-2001) and the Committee of Honor from the digital magazine ADES (Madrid, 1999-2001), and also the apprenticeship based on a new labor technique transformed the effort into a new product with gratifying results: two international prizes, a world dissemination through 55 countries (1 from Africa, 22 from America, 8 from Asia, 23 from Europe and 1 from the Oceanic continent), thousands of readers and their conversion in a reference place for the studies based on the current Spanish language. The Cibeles and Neptuno’s plot Madrid, like in the eighties, would be key place again at the end of this second stage. In May, 1999, with the call of the Upper Council of Sports in order to take part in the Grupo Científico de Documentación e Información Deportiva (Scientific Group based on Sporting Documentation and Information) and a year later, with the Spanish Academy’s request in order to take part in the checking of the terms referred to sport in the 22nd edition of the Diccionario de la Lengua Española (Spanish language Dictionary). They were two very intense times. Times full of happiness, of enormous work, but also they were times which confirmed definitely that the path undertaken in 1981 was the right one. It was the institutional springboard, perhaps thanks to the Neptuno’s help, the athlete’s God, and also thanks to his mother’s help, Cibeles, who hides new treasures in her key. And from here, to Gijón and Argentina again. This time in order to take part in the Scientific Group Comunicación y deporte (Communication and sport), from the Center based on Olympic Studies and Sciences Applied to Sport José Benjamín Zubiaur (San Luis), to start virtual seminars, to produce new articles and books, to give lectures in Buenos Aires, to collaborate with the football supporters’ club’s Federations’ Association when it’s necessary to diminish the violence linked to the stadiums, to take part in characteristics or features’ juries and stories’ juries as well…. Provisional
balance sheet Pero
el viajero que huye Twenty years have gone by since this journey to the infinite. Two decades from the work guarded jealously in a shoebox to the development of files based on information technology with institutions, from the interviews overhead in passing in the tunnels of the changing rooms to the dissemination by Internet. Twenty years have gone by since an idea which has acquired many forms combining the traditional aspect and the innovation. Four periods of five years of the Bay of Biscay’s sparks in Gijón, of the Aegean Sea in the Cape of Sunión, of the Leman lake in Lausana and of the Atlantic Ocean in Rio de Janeiro. Twenty years which have found their complete peace in Estaca de Bares, the boundary between the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean which is the place where all the winds are intersected. A work was developed and nowadays it’s used as reference in investigations about the language in the sporting communication, the journalistic language and the current Spanish. Nobody knows what future will afford. Probably, times in order to adapt everything which was carried out to new working ways. In order to confirm again that sport is a dynamics which is capable of getting carried away to the infinite, which it’s also capable of allowing to meet unthinkable people, of inculcating an immense and interior peace and also of reconciling opponents in order to benefit from the bitter flavor of the triumphs and also to benefit from the sweetness of the defeats. Today, December 2001, the author goes for a walk again opposite the Bay of Biscay along the San Lorenzo beach. By the place where numerous ideas arise. Death states some absences, but the waves keep on roaring, waves which haven’t got tired of bringing ideas and calm during all these years. It’s getting dark. The lights blink far off. The echoes of the old streets are blowing, ringing. Below the stars’ mocking look, which see him come back with indifference today, the author maintains the renewed hope, dream by the sporting language, the humble hope of keeping on with his study. The Obelisk and the Praise of the horizon’s silhouette are fused together in a hug between the waves’ beat and the look forward without nostalgia. Asturias and Buenos Aires, 2001 Traducción: María Elena Martín Pérez
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