Sergio Gutierrez owns the eponymously named Olla Taqueria Gutierrez restaurant at 301 W. 12th St. in Covington – better known as Olla Cov.
He remembers the Monday afternoon he invited some of the employees to play pickup basketball at a local park – including Estephany Perez, whose family moved to Northern Kentucky from Guatemala three years ago. He quickly discovered Perez had serious skills.
“And then I found that she had a team and that they go and play in tournaments,” Gutierrez said.
The team Gutierrez sponsored this year, the Covington Stars, is now a championship squad of seven. They won a six-team tournament Aug. 4 in Newport.
Guitierrez interpreted a telephone interview for Perez.
“She said that she started picking up on basketball when she was in middle school,” Perez said. “She likes to compete, and it’s fun being around friends and just having fun.”
To Gutierrez, whose family moved from Puebla, Mexico to Erlanger some 17 years ago, basketball is part of a larger goal – uniting multiple cultures through Mexican food. “Olla” is Spanish for “cooking pot,” in which multitudinous flavors come together in stews and soups.
“I think that sports has actually helped all of the community come together,” Gutierrez said. “It’s not just Guatemalans; they have Mexican people on their teams.”
Adriana Diaz has played for the Stars for six years. To her, basketball is therapeutic.
“It’s really something I can clear my mind on, most of the time when I have a stressful day,” she said.
Gutierrez didn’t take long to realize sponsoring the Stars was a good idea when Perez asked him.
“She’s my employee, she’s a really good employee,” Gutierrez said. “And I’m really big on being active, and I like the fact that it’s a lot of Latino women that are coming out here and playing.”
Covington’s Hispanic population has grown.
According to datausa.io (bit.ly/3M2BsUI) Covington’s population was 40,923 as of 2022, including 3,477 (8.49%) who identified as Hispanic. That’s up from 2013 when U.S. Census data reported that 1,647 of 40,676 residents were Hispanic (4.04%).
“All the Hispanic people tend to go to the parks in the afternoon after work, and that’s where the whole pickup basketball with the Hispanic community started,” Gutierrez said.
A new game
Gutierrez said basketball the way Guatemalan women play is basically the same as what Americans play.
“For them, it’s like their basketball skills are a little bit far behind; they’re not as advanced as here,” he said. “Here, basketball is the main sport. In our country, everybody knows every rule for soccer. Basketball is something that’s new. Some of them are just now starting to pick up a basketball, but they’re just doing it for fun.”
Finding a place to play, meanwhile, was as difficult as guarding Steph Curry at the 3-point line.
“They would show up to the basketball courts, but usually most of the basketball courts are being used up by the men – just playing around, pickup basketball, whatever,” Gutierrez said. “And then, once they found a court that wasn’t being used, it was finding more people like them to play.”
Gutierrez said Kenney Shields Park on West Ninth Street and Randolph Park on East Eighth are popular destinations.
Gutierrez is a team bridge – he tells the players where to buy shoes, socks, knee pads and order uniforms. He also learned a lesson about Guatemalan culture.
“With the Hispanic community, Guatemalan women are very shy,” he said. “They don’t really speak to men unless it’s their husband or their families. Even for me, it’s been a learning experience getting close to them. Sometimes I have to watch how I act because I don’t want them to take it the wrong way.”
A big thing
The Stars are not a new team – they’ve played in Cincinnati and elsewhere. The Newport tournament was supposed to be played in Cincinnati, but was moved to the outdoor courts next to Newport High School because no court was available in the Queen City.
There were two teams from Kentucky, three from Cincinnati, and one from … Atlanta.
“I didn’t know that they had this big of a thing,” Gutierrez said.
The biggest and best thing, at least for the Stars – an undefeated run.
“They had already played against some of the other teams,” Gutierrez said. “In previous tournaments, some of those teams had beat them. And then this time, they beat all the teams.”
Another tournament is scheduled for Sept. 7, possibly in Newport. To Perez, it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t know much about the NBA or WNBA.
“I just like to play,” she said.