Cesare Rubini

As a club player-coach, Rubini won 6 Italian national domestic league titles in water polo (1947, 1949, 1950, 1952, 1953, 1955) with Società Canottieri Olona, Rari Nantes Napoli, and Rari Nantes Camogli. He also totaled 84 caps, for the senior Italian water polo national team, 42 of which were as a team captain. He won a gold medal at the 1947 European Water Polo Championship, with the senior Italian national water polo team.

In the meantime, he had also assumed the role of player-coach of the Italian basketball club Olimpia Milano, in 1948; and he was called by the national teams of both sports (basketball and water polo) to play with them. Rubini chose water polo, and he won a gold medal in the sport, at the 1948 Summer Olympic Games, in London, beating the Hungary in the final. With Rubini as a full-time player, Italy could boast what was to be called the "Golden Settebello", one of the most valuable water polo teams ever, which also won a bronze medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics, and at the Turin European Championship of 1954. In both the events, Italy was behind traditional rivals of Yugoslavia and Hungary.

As a club basketball player-coach, Rubini won 6 Italian national domestic league titles (1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1957) with Olimpia Milano. In 1957, he devoted himself only to the team's head coach role, and he then went on to win 9 more Italian national domestic league titles with Olimpia (1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1972). In those years, he set an unparalleled record of 322 victories, and 28 defeats. Overall, as head coach of the Milan team, Rubini totaled 501 victories, including the FIBA European Champions Cup (EuroLeague) championship in 1966, and two (European 2nd-tier) level FIBA European Cup Winners' Cups (FIBA Saporta Cup) titles, in 1971 and 1972: these were the first European-wide victories of Italian basketball clubs. He also won the Italian Cup, in 1972.

As a player, Rubini won a silver medal with the senior Italian national basketball team, at the EuroBasket 1946, held in Geneva. Later, as the delegation head of the senior Italian national basketball team, Rubini also took part in the first international victories of Italy: these include the silver medal at the 1980 Summer Olympic Games. At the EuroBasket, Italy finished first at the 1983 EuroBasket, in Nantes, finished third at the 1985 EuroBasket, in Stuttgart, and finished second at the 1991 EuroBasket, in Rome.