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José Santori Coll (May 7, 1932 – April 2, 2018) was a Puerto Rican basketball player and coach. Santori was also, for a short period late in his life, a bachata singer; he recorded an album, named ''El Sentimiento de Fufi'' (''Fufi's Feeling'') and musically directed by Harry Fraticelli, during 2011. Born in
Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico Santurce (, from the Basque '' Santurtzi'' which means Saint George) is a barrio or district in the municipality of San Juan. Its population in 2020 was 69,469. It is also the biggest and most populated of all the barrios in the capital city w ...
, he was better known as Fufi Santori. After his retirement from
National Superior Basketball The Baloncesto Superior Nacional, abbreviated as BSN, is the first-tier-level professional men's basketball league in Puerto Rico. It was founded in 1929 and is organized by the Puerto Rican Basketball Federation. The Baloncesto Superior Naci ...
Santori became a coach and television sportscaster. He was also a
physical education Physical education, often abbreviated to Phys Ed. or P.E., is a subject taught in schools around the world. It is usually taught during primary and secondary education, and encourages psychomotor learning by using a play and movement explorat ...
, basketball and
tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
instructor at the
University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus (UPRM) or Recinto Universitario de Mayagüez (RUM) in Spanish (also referred to as Colegio and CAAM in allusion to its former name), is a public land-grant university in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. UPRM ...
for nearly thirty years. Fufi Santori was of Corsican-Puerto Rican descent. He was also, through his maternal grandfather, of Irish descent.


Early life and basketball

Fufi Santori, his brother Tito and the rest of his family moved to San Juan at an early age. He grew up with pro-independence political ideas; his grandfather
Cayetano Coll y Cuchí Cayetano Coll y Cuchí (June 21, 1881 – 1961) was a politician, writer and an advocate of Puerto Rican Independence. In 1917, he became the first President of Puerto Rico House of Representatives after the island was ceded to the United States ...
was first Speaker of the House of Representatives and his grand uncle José Coll y Cuchí was the founder of
Puerto Rican Nationalist Party The Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico ( es, Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico, PNPR) is a Puerto Rican political party founded on September 17, 1922, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Its primary goal is to work for Puerto Rico's independence. The P ...
. An avid sports fan, Santori was also a member of the Puerto Rican Olympic Basketball Team that participated in the
1960 Summer Olympics The 1960 Summer Olympics ( it, Giochi Olimpici estivi del 1960), officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad ( it, Giochi della XVII Olimpiade) and commonly known as Rome 1960 ( it, Roma 1960), were an international multi-sport event held ...
in Rome. He was a tennis player and coach. Santori made his debut in the
Baloncesto Superior Nacional The Baloncesto Superior Nacional, abbreviated as BSN, is the first-tier-level professional men's basketball league in Puerto Rico. It was founded in 1929 and is organized by the Puerto Rican Basketball Federation. The Baloncesto Superior Naci ...
(BSN) in 1951 with the Cangrejeros de Santurce. That season he was chosen as the BSN Rookie of the Year after averaging 17.85 points per game. In 1952 he started playing for the Gallitos de la UPR, a team that played for both BSN league and the LAI league at that moment. In 1953 he became the BSN Scoring Champion with 28.3 points per game. With this scoring title he stopped Raúl "Tinajón" Feliciano's five year streak as the BSN Scoring Champion from 1948 to 1952. That same year, Santori won the BSN Most Valuable Player Award. In 1954 he had a second stint with the Cangrejeros de Santurce and a year later Santori joined the BSN's
Capitanes de Arecibo The Capitanes de Arecibo are a Puerto Rican professional basketball team based in Arecibo that competes in the Baloncesto Superior Nacional (BSN) league. In 2010, the team also had the distinction to play in the Premier Basketball League (PBL) ...
, where he gained fame across Puerto Rico as one of the better known professional basketball players of the 1950s and 1960s. He was one of the players that helped
Arecibo Arecibo (; ) is a city and municipality on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, located north of Utuado and Ciales; east of Hatillo; and west of Barceloneta and Florida. It is about west of San Juan, th ...
to become the only team to go undefeated the entire season when the Capitanes won the 1959 BSN national title. He also played for the Rio Piedras squad, winning two scoring titles there, in 1963 and 1968. Santori was later chosen as the 30th best player in Puerto Rican basketball history by a BSN voting panel.


After basketball

Santori's popularity kept growing after he retired from the game. In 1982, he joined
Manolo Rivera Morales Manuel Rivera Morales (''aka'' "Manolo", "El Olimpico", "Mr. Apuntenlo") (May 14, 1923–May 25, 2000) (in Spanish) was a Puerto Rican sportscaster, radio announcer and marketing sales executive. Rivera Morales is considered by many to be the be ...
as television broadcasters during
WAPA-TV WAPA-TV (channel 4) is a Spanish-language independent television station in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is owned by Hemisphere Media Group, which is 84% owned by InterMedia Partners. WAPA-TV's studios are located on Avenida Luis Vigoreaux in G ...
's transmissions of BSN games. He remained in that position until 1985, when he accepted a contract to coach the
Gallitos de Isabela Gallitos de Isabela is a professional basketball team based in Isabela, Puerto Rico. They play their home games at the José Abreu Coliseum. History In 1984, the Gallitos reached the BSN Finals, during that year known, due to a scandal concerni ...
team. Apart from his television job, he started writing a daily column (during the BSN season) for
El Nuevo Dia EL, El or el may refer to: Religion * El (deity), a Semitic word for "God" People * EL (rapper) (born 1983), stage name of Elorm Adablah, a Ghanaian rapper and sound engineer * El DeBarge, music artist * El Franco Lee (1949–2016), American p ...
newspaper, where he predicted winners of BSN basketball games. In 1984, and taking into consideration his knowledge of the sport of tennis, WAPA-TV designed him as commentator of the Martina Navratilova- Gigi Fernández tennis game, one of the most widely seen sports events in Puerto Rican television history. He also held a daily basketball section at WAPA-TV's news show,
Noticentro 4 WAPA-TV (channel 4) is a Spanish-language independent television station in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is owned by Hemisphere Media Group, which is 84% owned by InterMedia Partners. WAPA-TV's studios are located on Avenida Luis Vigoreaux in Gu ...
, during the BSN season. His job at Noticentro 4, just like his job at El Nuevo Dia, was to predict winners of BSN basketball games, but he occasionally talked about other things, such as the time he predicted
Héctor Camacho Héctor Luís Camacho Matías (May 24, 1962 – November 24, 2012), commonly known by his nickname "Macho" Camacho, was a Puerto Rican professional boxer and entertainer. Known for his quickness in the ring and flamboyant style, Camacho compet ...
would outpoint
Edwin Rosario Edwin "Chapo" Rosario Rivera (; March 15, 1963 – December 1, 1997) was a Puerto Rican professional boxer who competed from 1979 to 1997. He is a world champion in two weight classes, having held the WBC lightweight title from 1983 to 1984, ...
in their
boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...
fight, although Santori was a self declared non-boxing fan. Camacho did outpoint Rosario in their bout. He also had a five-minute show named "Las guiritas de Fufi" ("Fufi's Lay-ups"), where he taught youngsters basketball fundamentals. After leaving the Gallitos de Isabela, Santori was reinstated to WAPA-TV's basketball broadcast team. He left to coach the national basketball team for a short period of time. After his stint as the national team's coach was over, he predicted, in 1992, that Puerto Rico's team would beat the original
Dream Team Dream Team may refer to: Sport Basketball * Dream Team, the 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team in Barcelona * Dream Team II, the 1994 U.S. men's national basketball team at the FIBA World Championship * Dream Team III, the 1996 ...
in
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
. Santori was an active member of the Puerto Rico Chess Federation and became a relatively strong player in tournaments held in Puerto Rico. Santori is the father of María Eugenia Santori, who competed in the
Chess Olympiad The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in 2020 an ...
representing the Puerto Rico National Chess Team in 1994. In 2006, Santori was honored with an award recognizing his career as a basketball player and sportscaster.


''Santori v. United States''

Fufi Santori tried, in 1994, to renounce his United States
citizenship Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
, aiming at gaining a mostly symbolic but technically possible
Puerto Rican citizenship Puerto Rico is an island in the Caribbean region in which inhabitants were Spanish nationals from 1508 until the Spanish-American War in 1898, from which point they derived their nationality from United States law. Nationality is the legal mea ...
. Santori's request was denied, based on lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. On June 28 of that year, an appeal from Santori's side was denied by the
United States district court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district co ...
for the district of Puerto Rico. Santori's request was rejected because specifically says that renunciations of U.S. citizenship must be made before a U.S. diplomatic or consular officer abroad. Santori's attempt at renunciation was in the form of an affidavit in Lares, Puerto Rico. Behind the litigation over Santori's nationality status lie some anomalies and peculiarities relating to matters of status in Puerto Rico: Under the Treaty of Paris under which the United States acquired sovereignty over Puerto Rico, Spanish nationals had a right of option. United States nationality (citizenship) is acquired by persons born in Puerto Rico by that Treaty and under statute, and not under the 14th Amendment (, ). Finally, U.S. citizens, born or naturalized in Puerto Rico and domiciled and resident there at the time of death, are not subject to U.S. estate tax on Puerto Rican assets: ; Rev. Rul. 74-25; TAM 7612220070A; General Counsel Memorandum 36944, Dec. 10, 1976.


See also

*
Basketball at the 1960 Summer Olympics Basketball at the 1960 Summer Olympics was the fifth appearance of the sport of basketball as an official Olympic medal event. 16 nations were admitted into the Olympic tournament, with many others being eliminated in a pre-Olympic tournament ...
* BSN Most Valuable Player Award


References


External links


Stats in the 1960 Olympics
from Basketball Reference

{{DEFAULTSORT:Santori, Fufi 1932 births 2018 deaths American men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players Basketball players at the 1960 Summer Olympics BSN coaches National team coaches Olympic basketball players of Puerto Rico People from Santurce, Puerto Rico Puerto Rican independence activists Puerto Rican basketball coaches Puerto Rican men's basketball players Puerto Rican chess players Puerto Rican people of Irish descent Point guards Bachata singers 21st-century Puerto Rican male singers