Willy Geuer y Juancho Hernangómez. Mom and dad, represented. The brothers of the Selection they shone in the Eurobasket each wearing the surname of one of their parents. A tribute to the lineage of basketball players in his family. At home they have always lived with a ball and, moreover, with success.
The symbology in Willy’s case is clear: W. Geuer on his t-shirt. Just like it would be if her mother wore it. She is called Margaret Yvonne Geuer (Seville, 1966), but everyone has known her and knows her as ‘Wonny‘ as an abbreviation for his middle name. Of German DNA, his maternal grandfather-Gustav Draeger– had been consul of the Federal Republic of Germany in Sevilla.
Before being ‘the mother of…’, Wonny wrote her own history in Spanish women’s basketball. She began playing at the Irlandesas school in Bami, in the Andalusian capital, and ended up being capped 158 times with spain. Almost 30 years before Willy and Juancho, she also became champion of Europa with the Selection.
[El día que Juancho Hernangómez se convirtió en Bo Cruz: 27 puntos y 7 triples del héroe de España]
Geuer was a 1.85 meter warrior center. Her height opened a gap for her in basketball, although as a child she was more into tennis or skiing. In Germany, those sports had given or gave figures like Boris Becker o Rosi Mittermaier. But Wonny, as a Spaniard, was destined to open a path for women.
At the age of 13, he was already close to one meter eighty. After Las Irlandesas, he went through other clubs (Friends-Swimming o Medicine-Oximper Club, of the second national division) while making room for himself in the inferiors of the National Team. He settled in the junior team, which in the early 1980s had Chema Pussyand was even called by the absolute with 16 although he did not finally attend until three years later.
Wonny Geuer, in her time as a player
FEB
Wonny’s leap came when in 1983 she moved to Madrid and signed for the legendary Real Canoe, of First. He won the league the three seasons he was there, until 1986, and then he did make his debut for the national team. He was on June 6, 1985, in a friendly preparation for the European that was played that year. Spain was 10th.
In the following Eurobasket, in 1987, the National Team ‘moved up’ to sixth place, but after that two failures followed, not qualifying for the 1989 European Championship and the seoul olympic games. Margarita Geuer played between 1986 and 1988 in the Juncas de Lugo and in the spring of last year she married a Real Madrid basketball player, Guillermo Hernangomez Heir.
The ADO plan and the ’92 Olympics
The next turning point in his sports career, also in 1988, was joining the ADO plan. devised by the Spanish Basketball Federationit was a demanding program that had to prepare the women’s team that had to represent the country in the Barcelona Games.
They were 48 months -four years- of enormous sacrifices and continuous preparation. The days became eternal, with up to eight hours of physical exercise on occasion. A pioneering generation was forged there, with Wonny as one of the heads of the team. Geuer was the center that gave intensity to the team and she didn’t have to look pretty.
In the ’92 Olympics, the women’s team led by Buceta came fifth. She was left out of the medal fight in the group, but then beat Italy and Czechoslovakia to sign a brilliant Olympic diploma.
At that time, basketball was experiencing a kind of ‘boom’ in Spain for several years. But the boys ‘crashed’ in the Olympic event with only one victory in five games. The final result was a ninth place, while the Dream Team of Michael Jordan and company amazed everyone.
The Eurobasket of 93
In Barcelona the seed was sown for what came a year later. The group remained about the same for the Eurobasket de 1993: Betty Cebrián, Carolina Mújica, Blanca Ares, Mónica Messa, Ana Belén Álvaro, Marina Ferragut…And of course Wonny.
The team, led by Manolo Coloma, flew and won the first gold medal for Spanish women’s basketball in a European Championship. Was held in Perugia (Italy) and the semifinal victories against Slovakia (73-55) and the final against France (63-53). This match was the last of Geuer’s career.
basketball family
Wonny believed that after that gold it was time to leave him. He was only 27 years old, but he wanted to stop due to accumulated fatigue -both physical and mental-. Her ADO plan pushed her to the limit and, besides, she had another wish: to be a mother. Guillermo, Geuer’s husband, had already stopped her career from a knee injury. She played a year at Madrid and then went through teams like Studentsbecoming international sub18.
In 1994, Willy was born. A year later Juancho arrived and in 2000 the little one, Andrea. Three Hernangómez Geuer, all of them with basketball as a vocation. Like their parents, they have all passed through the inferiors of the National Team.
The Hernangómez family, in its entirety
Willy and Juancho play in the NBA and now they are the stars of the Absolute, brand new champion of Europa. One was the MVP of the tournament and the other of the final. Andrea is educated in the USA, with the dream of reaching the WNBA. Her mother would surely have played in it, but it wasn’t created until 1996. Her legacy lives on.
