In the chapel of a small hillside sanctuary in Porretta Terme — a handsome town in central Italy known for the healing powers of its thermal waters — a single basketball-shaped window, its panes curved like seams, poured light on walls filled with basketball jerseys. On a table, a notebook contained pages of devotionals, including gratitude for a healed meniscus and prayers to “win the championship in the next few years.”
The back wall bore a bas-relief of a dying basketball player, palming a ball in his left hand as the Virgin Mary watched his earthly clock run down. “I offer you the joy of every bucket,” Don Filippo Maestrello, a center-sized local priest, prayed to the Madonna of the Bridge in the Chapel of the Basketball Players.
