MIES (Switzerland) – It was the 1970s, and a Swiss basketball game on television was being played before perhaps 200 quiet spectators in a small gymnasium. Then, at halftime, the broadcast showed something new: images from the NBA.
“You have a place with like 20,000 people and Dr. J - Julius Erving - is flying around,” Mirco Cussigh remembers back to when he was 13. “I said, now I've stopped playing soccer, and now I want to play basketball.”
More than 50 years later, Cussigh, a retired chef originally from the Bernese Jura region in the canton of Bern and born in Moutier, Switzerland, is a volunteer and "friend" of the Patrick Baumann House of Basketball in Mies. There, he conducts guided tours, assists with archiving collections, and helps set up exhibitions and display cases. Through the exhibition "From the Court to the Big Screen," he brings together two of his lifelong passions: basketball and cinema.
“I fell in love with the orange ball,” said Cussigh, who was just dumbfounded by what he had seen from the Philadelphia 76ers superstar Dr. J. "He opened my mind, triggering an internal tsunami of boundless joy, thrills, enchantment, and euphoria."
He traded his soccer cleats for Converse Chuck Taylors. Few of his friends cared about basketball, and the game wasn’t popular in his region of Switzerland. So, he found himself on the court alone, even in the rain or during winter, just shooting and shooting, developing a shot that carried him through clubs in England and Switzerland and to a career average of 19 points during his playing days.
The collector in him meanwhile started earlier.
At about age 10, Cussigh came across packs of large Chinese stamps and was captivated by their colors and design. Stamps helped him discover the world through geography and history - long before the internet. His brother Claudio, a typesetter and journalist, added a love of paper, from books to posters.
Around the age of 25, his partner Nicole pointed out that he could combine his two passions.
“That was the turning point,” Cussigh said.
He focused his collection on basketball-themed philately, which led to the founding of the International Filabasket Society (IFIS) with a group of friends. He went on to organize or participate in about a dozen exhibitions on the subject across Switzerland, Italy, and Spain. This included a presentation during the 1994 FIBA European Cup final at the Lausanne Palace, an event attended by IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, who was himself a philatelist.
Cussigh’s love of the cinema also stems from his childhood.
On Sundays, his father took him to the movies while he played cards with friends, and the cinema manager let the boy watch films meant for adults. Then, around midnight in the early 1980s, Swiss television aired ‘The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh’, starring his idol Julius Erving.
“That was when the idea of seeking out films gradually began to take shape, because I wanted to see more.”
Cussigh’s film collection began in earnest in the early 1990s, with trips to the United States and specialist film shops that were “like Aladdin’s caves, full of treasures at fair prices”
He bought a poster for the 1979 film ‘The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh’ signed by Erving himself, when such pieces were far cheaper. He says he was “more than crazy” with excitement, having never seen a signed poster before. Just a few months ago, on an auction site he had never visited, he discovered a second one. He bought that one, too.
Cussigh said Erving is “part of his own personal story”, and the poster is now one of the jewels of his collection.
It is on show in “From the Court to the Big Screen” at the FIBA House of Basketball, Cussigh’s 11th exhibition and the largest yet. This year also marks the twentieth anniversary of his very first exhibition, which was held in Milan in 2006 during the FICTS Festival.
The collection includes film posters, promotional photos, and press kits, as well as clothing worn in movies and autographed memorabilia. Mirco Cussigh owns approximately 400 basketball-themed films in both DVD and VHS formats. He also possesses a collection of several hundred comic books and manga, which were featured in an exhibition in Switzerland in 2022.
Cussigh says he doesn’t so much hunt for treasures anymore but seems to just stumble upon them.
In a small Swiss village, he once discovered a letter from the first president of FIBA, tucked away among a batch of several dozen other letters.
“They find me,” Cussigh said of his discoveries.
Despite everything he has, one piece still eludes him: a poster for the 1938 film "Campus Confessions," starring Hank Luisetti.
Cussigh has no interest in auctions or profit. He doesn’t do collecting for the money. When he does add an important piece, he feels it has been “saved” for basketball’s history.
In 2013, Cussigh visited the Fribourg International Film Festival, whose theme was sport, and found FIBA’s photographic exhibition “Basketball Is Everywhere”. There he talked to a FIBA representative, told him about his collection, and was invited to Mies.
That was over 10 years ago. Since taking early retirement in 2022, Cussigh comes to Mies more often, travelling five hours by train after waking at 5 a.m.
Cussigh doesn’t mind the trip from his home, which he says feels like one hour. Being at the House of Basketball is just pure joy: “I’m like a child in a toy shop.”
His responsibilities include organizing guided tours, archival work, arranging display cases, and setting up exhibitions. The venue has also allowed him to reconnect with Miguel Font, a friend he has known for over 35 years. He refers to the place as his "second home" and describes the FIBA Foundation team as a true "Dream Team."
Cussigh is most passionate about children's visits. For some, it is their first trip to a museum, so he wants them to feel welcome. Some may have had a difficult day or week, and he hopes to help them forget “cloudy” thoughts for a while.
He strives to share his passion, even with those who are not basketball fans. The most important thing, he explains, is to engage with people and "pass on the basketball bug to everyone."
Through his dedication to the game and its past, Cussigh has become a member of FIBA's Community of Basketball Historians, something he calls “a great honor”.
He has been reading books about this sport since he was a teenager, as it is his true passion. Having spent years studying the discipline, he now finds a wonderful opportunity to put that knowledge to use by answering questions from both adults and children during every visit.
For Mirco Cussigh, the past serves as a compass: it reveals the evolution of the sport and helps ensure that the mistakes of yesteryear are not repeated. He hopes that his decades of research will be passed on permanently to future generations, including other collectors and sports enthusiasts, so that this passion may endure forever within the walls of the House of Basketball.
His message to fans is that basketball should stay enjoyable and remain a team game that teaches people to share and stand together.
"Passion can be passed on quickly and easily, when you want to bring enjoyment and happiness to others,” he stated.
Furthermore, Mirco Cussigh is convinced that, in the future, others will experience magical moments like his own, thanks to people like "Dr. J."
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The FIBA Foundation is the social and legacy arm of FIBA that addresses the role of sports particularly basketball in society, preserving and promoting basketball’s values and its cultural heritage.
FIBA’s cultural heritage is the heart of the FIBA Foundation’s cultural and historical activities. It is one of the driving forces behind the promotion and dissemination of FIBA’s values.