- Nickname
- Magic Paula
- Height5′ 8½″ (1.74 m)
- Magic Paula was born in Osvaldo Cruz, São Paulo, Brazil, on March 11, 1962, as Maria Paula Gonçalves da Silva. She is considered one of the greatest basketball players in the world. She is the youngest athlete in history to have been summoned to the adult female Brazilian team: 14 years old, in 1976. Later, she received from the journalist Juarez Araújo the nickname of Magic Paula, in reference to the American player Magic Johnson. The greatest player in the history of national women's basketball, alongside Hortência, played in the Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games, in addition to three editions of the Pan American Games and six world championships. After leaving the courts in 2000, Paula founded the Passe de Mágica Institute in 2004, offering activities, especially sports, to children and adolescents with social vulnerability.- IMDb Mini Biography By: COB
- In 1996, she shone again in the Brazilian women's basketball team at the Atlanta Olympic Games, winning the silver medal.
- In 1994 she won the unprecedented title of the world championship of selections, held in Australia, where the Brazilian team defeated the United States, in the semifinals, by 110 to 107, and China in the decisive match, by 96 to 87.
- In 2006, Paula joins the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, in Knoxville, USA.
- In 2013, he joins the Hall of Fame of the International Basketball Federation (Fiba), in Geneva (SUI).
- At the Pan American Games in Havana, held in 1991, the Brazilian women's team played the finals of the tournament with the Cubans and Fidel Castro attended the game. In this game, Magic Paula shone in the second half: she made five shots from three points and hit four, and the Brazilians won by 97 to 76. In the delivery of the gold medal, Fidel Castro asked Paula to stand on his back and pointing at her shirt, he made a negative gesture with his finger as if he had the intention of not giving the gold medal to the athlete and, jokingly, he called her "witch".
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