Ubaldino Ramírez de Arellano
Ubaldino Ramírez de Arellano Quiñones (July 24, 1894 – December 8, 1982) was a Puerto Rican dentist, a state legislator, and a basketball pioneer. He was born in San Germán, Puerto Rico, where he lived most of his life. He studied at the university, joined the Phi Sigma Alpha fraternity, and played professional basketball in his younger years. He later became the first president of the Liga Puertorriqueña de Baloncesto and is known in San Germán as the "Father of Basketball."
In politics, he served in the Puerto Rico House of Representatives from 1945 to 1952. In 1949 he helped arrange for the Porta Coeli Church in San Germán to be sold to the government for safekeeping and preservation. In 1951 he served on the Legislative Commission of the Constitutional Assembly that drafted the Puerto Rico Constitution and he was a signer of the Constitution.
In 1956 he sponsored a measure to fund the creation of the University of Puerto Rico School of Dental Medicine; the bill passed and the school was established later that year. He died on December 8, 1982, and was buried in Trujillo Cemetery in San Germán.
His legacy includes a basketball court named Cancha Ubaldino Ramírez de Arellano in San Germán, where the Atléticos de San Germán used to play. In 2008, a committee named him as one of Puerto Rico's best basketball players of the 1920s. He was married to Angeles Poventud, and they had three children: Ubaldino Jose "Don Nino," Angeles, and Jose Alfredo Ramirez de Arellano.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:50 (CET).