A Playmaker to Lead the Bocconi Sport Team

Since the end of 2019, Riccardo Santolamazza has been leading the Bocconi teams and student-athletes as Director of Sport Operations. A 38-year-old from Rome, whom basketball fans remember as playmaker on the Italian basketball courts for about 20 years, a professional career which ended with the historic promotion of the Urania Milano team in the A2 Division, when Riccardo decided to accept the call of the Bocconi Sport Team, an opportunity that had to be seized at all costs. 

“When Bocconi contacted me, I thought about when, about fifteen years earlier, I was playing in the B Division with the Patti team, in Sicily. We were first in the league, having a splendid season. The Reggio Emilia team, in the A1 Division, offered me a job to replace their starting point guard who was out for an injury. I refused, because I wanted to finish the season in Patti. I missed that train", Riccardo recalls, "and I told myself I didn’t want to miss another one".  

Yet, after the promotion with Urania, he received many offers from various teams, but for him it was about planning the next stage of his career, a role that puts him behind a desk, but just for some of his worktime.  Riccardo Santolamazza oversees the teams of the Bocconi sporting association and reports to the Sports and Wellness Division of the University. A little in the office, a lot on the court and field. “Since I was a child, this has been my world”. His parents were professional dancers and his brother Fabrizio is assistant trainer for the Italian national basketball team which went to the Tokyo Olympics.  

“I was naturally inclined to practice various sports, including football. I auditioned for the Lazio soccer team, but in the end my father decided for basketball and it was a good choice ". At 19 years of age, Riccardo made his debut in the top division and from there his long adventure began, with the awareness of being privileged because his passion was also his job. "The training, the sacrifices, the need to always perform, I’ve never experienced them as negative pressures, they were my life. You don't think that your peers can do things that you are not allowed to do”, Riccardo says again. "An athlete lives with a different perspective, always being at his or her best to earn better salaries in the future". 

At Bocconi, Riccardo is the point of reference for many student-athletes who turn to him for any kind of problem, a kind of dynamic that he has experienced firsthand: “The problems on the court and in the locker room are always the same, at any level. I believe that my sports career has given me the ability to relate to people and that this, today, is my greatest quality. Young athletes, especially basketball players, know about my past and this adds credibility to my decisions. Here I also have to follow sports that I am less experienced about, but at the University I found great respect for roles and a real team spirit that guides everyone towards common goals". In his role, Riccardo must also deal with some bureaucratic issues. It was he, for example, who oversaw the complex homologation procedures for the courts and fields of the brand-new Bocconi sports complex, interacting with the various Italian sports federations. But he’s not yet done with his basketball sneakers, to the contrary: "I am a player of the Bocconi Sport Team basketball team", he says, "a wonderful experience alongside quite younger guys who see me as a point of reference in the C Gold championship, which is anything but simple". Because for Riccardo every game is a challenge: “Competing is something I've always been used to, no matter what level I was playing at. You must always give your best, on and off the court”.