Carlos Alberto Nuñez: « I am an idol »

Extract from Carlos Alberto Nuñez’s book (free translation): Mi infancia sobre ruedas (1986), published on the Argentinean Website clasicodeportivosanjuan.blogsport.com on February 2nd, 2017.

« My name is Eugenio Gonzalez, and I am 20. »

 » Today I’m sad, I’m back from my hockey training, it’s the same old everyday routine. I’ve thrown my stick and my sports bag and I’ve started thinking, as I am watching a group of children playing and running around, laughing and pushing one another to get the ball, and there are no grown-ups, only children having a blast.
They make me want to run and join them, be one of them, have fun like them, I’m ready to run to them, but I have a moment of doubt and I stop, as my conscience tells me it’s too late, I’m too old.
Why didn’t I play like them? Why did I spend my whole childhood exhausting myself training, with my stick and ball, from one place to another, without even having had the time to realize what I was doing? And now, daddy, I’m asking you: did you forget I was a child, did you forget I needed to play like the others, and not have that weight on my shoulders that I could not understand, at that age of tales and imagination? But you were proud, and you were always asking for more.
Now, see who I am. I know, it’s never crossed your mind, but I’m going to tell you: I am an extraordinary hockey player and a young man who never had a childhood because you stole it from me, and now it’s too late.
Give me back the childhood you deprived me of, and I’ll give you back the player you’ve created. Don’t you know that childhood is the most beautiful stage of live, and once it’s gone, it’s gone?
As soon as I am back home, I will tell you, daddy, or maybe you’ll never know what I felt deep inside when I saw those children play.
Moral of the story: let’s not deprive our children of their childhood, just because we have the ambition of creating idols, forgetting that, when they are all grown up, they won’t forgive us for having stolen the Wonderland of their childhood. Let’s let our children choose freely and without pressure the moments of their existence.« 

Illustration: Sébastien Furstenberger