One day, Gea Barbieri Uguccioni from Pesaro decided to leave everything and move to the USA to pursue a dream: coaching basketball. She, a former Olimpia player, says goodbye to her mother and leaves. He does this in 2017. He is now 26 years old. Many sacrifices, many bitter pills and above all a lot of nostalgia for Pesaro and his family and friends. But Gaea achieved her goal. Alone. She is so good at her job that she will soon move from Chicago, where she has lived since she landed in America, to New Jersey where she will go to train with an NBA skills trainer. The best for those who follow basketball. Because the NBA is like the Oscar, but in a segmented ball version. “I moved to the United States, to Illinois precisely in 2017 after obtaining my surveyor’s diploma in Pesaro – says Gea herself who with a name like that couldn’t stay in one place all her life –. The reason for the move It’s basketball, a great passion that pushed me overseas.” Barbieri Uguccioni explains in detail what she does, a sector less visible than others, but undoubtedly very important: “The objective has always been to work as a basketball skills trainer, training basketball players exclusively on the technical part without focusing on the tactics”.
Gea has therefore concentrated all her efforts on this profession which is the basis of every sport and in particular basketball. “From the age of 15 I started studying the methods of I’mPossible Skills Training founded by NBA skills trainer Micah Lancaster and then became a skills trainer certified by the same association”. The certification makes her specialize in training players using innovative methods to find technical gaps in footwork, body positions when attacking the basket and other aspects. A particular profession that not everyone is able to teach, so much so that Barbieri Uguccioni is one of the few excellences in Europe and the USA: “Only 30 skills trainers in Europe and 120 in the USA have obtained the I’mPossible Training certification which is obtained through examination”. An achievement that says a lot about the stubbornness of this girl from Pesaro and above all that highlights her skills and talents in this branch. Today Gea participates in basketball conferences throughout the United States with the most important American skills trainers and also had the opportunity to train in a camp in Vienna with NBA skills trainer DJ Sackmann in the summer of 2019. This is why she will soon move to New Jersey to train with an NBA skills trainer. A woman from Pesaro who fulfilled her American dream.
Beatrice Terenzi
