101 Greats of European Basketball

won two league and two cup titles. His last big competition
was the Olympic Games in Montreal in 1976.
Honorary citizen, hall of famer
Raga returned to Europe thanks to a great initiative
by Euroleague Basketball during the 2008 Final Four
in Madrid. There, the 50th anniversary of European
competitions spawned a voted list of the 50 biggest
contributors to our sport during all those years. Of
course, Manuel Raga could not miss being on that list.
In Madrid, he was moved by the recognition and he
managed to meet many old teammates and rivals to
reminisce about the golden years. He also returned to
Varese on March 12, 2010, to receive the recognition as
an honorary citizen of that city in front of 2,500 people.
Varese had not forgotten about its idol during the
1970s, a great player who could jump like a big man and
had an extraordinary fadeaway jumper as he waited for
the rival to fall first to the floor. He was incredibly fast
and capable of flying over rivals and playing above the
rim, which inspired Enrico Campana, then a journalist at
La Gazzetta dello Sport, to call him the Helicopter Man.
In 1991, Raga was an assistant coach on the Mexico
national team that won the silver medal at the Pan
American Games in Havana, Cuba. He lives now with
his second wife, a former volleyball player from Cuba,
Lucia Urgelles. He works at the Sports Department of
Tamaulipas, where a gym bears his name. In 2016, he
was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame.
On March 2, 1997, Horacio Llamas made history
by becoming the first Mexican to ever play in the NBA
with the Dallas Mavericks. But 30 years earlier a fellow
Mexican could have done so with no problems as the
first non-American in the league. European basketball
should be grateful to the Atlanta Hawks for not spending
those $35,000, because if they did, we would not
have been able to enjoy the genius abilities of The Flying
Mexican.
101 greats of european basketball
Manuel Raga
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