Una entrevista con Álvaro Folgueiras

In this stand-alone podcast interview, Professor Ana Fernández Bravo sits down with the University of Iowa Hawkeyes basketball standout, Álvaro Folguerias, who captured the hearts of Hawkeye fans everywhere this past March. A native of Málaga, Spain, Álvaro speaks candidly about his beach-side upbringing, tight-knit family, and how he fell in love with basketball at a young age. He traces his path from Unicaja's youth academy in Málaga to crossing the Atlantic at 16, arriving in the United States with little English and an unwavering dream of playing basketball at a high level.

From start to finish, Álvaro's personality and joie de vivre provide a unique and engaging peek into his life as a student-athlete, building toward one of Iowa Men's Basketball's biggest moments in decades: his last-second, game-winning three-pointer against top-seeded Florida in the NCAA March Madness Tournament, sending the Hawkeyes to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1999. With remarkable candor, Álvaro describes telling his teammate Ben Stirtz to pass him the ball, "si me la das, la meto," and the eerie silence he heard in the arena as the ball hung in the air. He shares that after the shot fell, his first instinct was to look for his mother in the stands and to point to the sky in memory of his father, who passed away when Álvaro was nine years old.

Throughout the interview, Álvaro's warmth, humility, and philosophical outlook shine through — complimented nicely by his distinctly Andalusian Spanish. This episode is a wonderful resource for Spanish learners of all levels, offering authentic, spontaneous conversation on themes of family, sacrifice, identity, and belonging. As Álvaro heads to the University of Louisville next season and prepares for a call-up to the Spanish national team, we in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese are proud to have had the chance to celebrate his time at Iowa and wish him every success in the chapters ahead.