Y if he gets to the NBA? Highly unlikely with just one arm, basketball augurs say. Hansel Emmanuel Donato, however, does not intend to give up on his great dream. You already know that nothing is impossible in life.
At 18 years old, this lanky Dominican, 1.93 meters tall and 75 kilos, wins slam dunk contests, dribbles at breakneck speed, hits medium and long distance shots, makes layups, assists, rebounds, defends, blocks and enjoys of a deep understanding of the game. So much so that in 2021 he was the star of Life Christian Academy, his team, en route to the Florida high school title. In its first season! For the next one, he has already been signed by Tennessee State University, an NCAA club, the University League, a great gateway to the NBA, whose draft could access in a couple of years.
At the age of 6, a wall fell on him and he spent two hours in the rubble
Playing among the best in the world, facing his great idols LeBron James and Kevin Durant, would be the culmination of an illusion that he believed was truncated at the age of 6, when this son of a local Dominican basketball celebrity raised in Los Mina, one of the most miserable neighborhoods of Santo Domingo, a wall fell on him and he spent two hours in the rubble. It took him even longer to recover. “I needed help with everything: tying my shoes, getting dressed… –he recalls–, but God and the dream of being like my dad inspired me. Disability is nothing, it happens to anyone. You must never give up.”
That is his great teaching. And no one has learned more from his example than his own father. Known as Kikima, Hansel Salvador was the one who first dreamed of a future in the elite for his son, now nicknamed Kikimita. Basketball was injected into his veins from the moment he began to take his first steps, a circumstance that, when misfortune came, gave the little one a reason to improve himself. Hansel Emmanuel was not stopped by being stripped of his left arm; he wanted to keep playing. “I sank, my life fell apart,” recalls the father. Knowing that they had to amputate his arm, I felt that everything was over.
The boy, however, persevered. He recovered his spirits first and, despite his father’s reluctance, he picked up the ball again to start an unexpected progression. “I was afraid for him,” Salvador admits. That the other players hit him, that he could get hurt…». Fears that faded over time, as the boy began to develop skills with only one arm for which the rest of us mortals need two. In reality, the vast majority, even with four, we would not be able to get close…
Step by step, Kikimita continued on his way, becoming a starter in his school teams and, later, in high school. In the days of the Internet, it was only a matter of time before his one-handed prowess transcended the local arena. YouTube and Instagram gave him the push he needed. Amazed by what he saw in those videos that quickly went viral among basketball fans, Moises Michael Cruz, coach of the Life Christian Academy institute in Kissimmee, very close to Orlando, contacted his father and suggested moving with his son to the United States to to study at the center and play on his team.
He is interviewed by the local media after every away game and fans line up to get his autograph and have their picture taken with him.
“Since my son was younger, I came too,” his father told a local newspaper. He says that he will play in the NBA, but I just hope they can see what he is capable of. His arrival in the United States, a year ago now, amplified the viralization of his evolutions on the Internet. It accelerated with each game. In his first tournament, the Orlando Winter Showdown, he averaged 25 points and 11 rebounds. Some brutal figures for any player. More difficult still, he kept them throughout the season, thus becoming a key player in winning the state championship in the category. One of his baskets, duly viralized, was even nominated for the ‘Play of the Year’ award: Hansel passes a defender feigning a shot and dodges the next one that comes his way with a 360-degree turn culminating in a smooth layup. The ball is stuck between the hoop and the board, a hair’s breadth from being a basket. Nothing that prevented including the maneuver, which came to be broadcast by the news of the sports channel ESPN, among the best valued of the season.
That being the case, the call could not be long in coming. Last August, already champion, the phone rang. Tennessee State, a university with an NCAA basketball team –and a member of the HBCU, a national entity prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that promotes higher education among the African-American community–, offered him a scholarship for the next course . Your first offer. He has the remainder of the course to receive more and, while that arrives, wherever he goes he receives star treatment. He is interviewed by the local media after every away game and fans line up to get his autograph and have their picture taken with him. “I had never seen anything like it. Never,” says coach Cruz, astonished. Hundreds of children await Hansel. He’s a celebrity!”
For his father, however, he is so much more. “There was a time when I was your idol,” he told her one day live on a Dominican television program. But you have ended up being mine, my teacher, because of that desire for life. I know that one day you will thank me for how strong and demanding I have been with you.
