Beyond the X's and the O's

My shirt today read Marvelous Maroons, though my boys were anything but. They not only lacked Martin Reyes (downed by fever) and Magi Sison (downed by immaturity leading to a metacarpal fracture; heck, figure that out), they also were short on heft, height, composure, rebounding, and, it seems, the will to win.

They were missing lay-ups, three-pointers, and uncontested shots. They weren't passing the ball, their motion offense had no motion, and they weren't rebounding. Ateneo looked stellar in comparison, what with 30 rebounds more than UP had.

It should've been less of an uneven match: Even if UP is still rebuilding a team with its nine rookies, Ateneo also suffers the loss of three key players. To its credit, Ateneo does not play as if it were, as it is, handicapped, at least compared with other teams. Some say Ateneo might reach the Final Four, but would not be a serious contender. But don't tell that to the Ateneo: It wouldn't matter and they wouldn't care; those boys on the other side of Katipunan play with spirit and a big heart. I admire them for that.

It is true, what Coach Mark Jomalesa said to the boys yesterday, that when playing against the Ateneo, what matters more than the X's and the O's is energy and intensity—both of which were nowhere near the boys’ game today.

The Coach couldn't attend the game; he had an entire staff to run after his supervisor called in sick. He did his best, though; leaving his post, he went to the next-door sari-sari with a small TV set but no electricity. There was a generator, and The Coach, desperate, forked over money for someone to buy gasoline to power the generator. And so he was able to witness the massacre.

I write this at the Lavazza Caffe Espresso at The Fort, where the coaches have gone after dinner at Kaiseki to recover from the shocking 24-point loss.

This Sunday my boys will meet the powerhouse NU, with its formidable Asoro and Lingao-lingao. I'll be there with my Marvelous Maroons shirt, and hope it'll make a difference.

Half an hour

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour?"

I barely have time now, what with the demands of work and my rather imprudent decision to watch the game against Ateneo this afternoon at the oh-so-far Ninoy Aquino Stadium, but I choose to waste this half-hour to talk about my Maroons boys, never mind immortality.

We received quite a walloping last Saturday, the "luck" of the 777 having gone to the La Salle Archers, the best team money can buy. The DLSU boys were more efficient, clearly in command, hungry for the win after sitting out an entire year for conduct unbecoming of La Salle brothers—hence this year's UAAP motto: Honesty through sports.

My boys, rookies and sophomores, were overwhelmed by La Salle's patented full-court pressure. Migs de Asis wasn't defending, the boys weren't moving in offense, the rebounding was almost nil, and many were just feeling their way in the collegiate court.

Now with Magi Sison's untimely injury that'll sideline him for a month—he fractured his hand in a scuffle with a Team B player, dagnabbit—I wonder how my boys will fare against the Blue Eagles, particularly if Chris Tiu gets his 3-point groove back and Ford Arao is all warmed up, like diesel.

I'm anxious enough to not be satisfied with watching the game on TV and to brave the rains to see my boys, even while The Coach could not attend today's game, his Air 21 work getting in the way of what his heart truly desires.

Off to the stadium I go. I would like to sit near the UP alum whom I sat in front of last Saturday. Stinging from an impending loss, what could a UPian do but heckle? This man was purple and green in his prose. I was listening to his colorful commentary the entire game. He'd taunt the foreign-denominated La Salle team: "Pabiling isang Maienhoffer with cheese! With french fries, please!" And of course with a name like Atkins, a player would get a ribbing about his diet.

My half-hour's up.

Storm's a-brewin'

Season 70 of the UAAP is yet to come, and already the drama is grinding, grinding, grinding. Much of the fireworks—that we're still hoping won't go off—will center around a ruling issued today by the governing body. A quick powwow with my beloved Coach Joe and The Coach a while ago did nothing to pacify me. Not that The Coach wants me calm: He knows I am at my most percipient and formidable in a fight.

Nobody messes with my boys. Nobody.

Give 'em hell, Coach!

At the dinner after UP’s exhilarating win against UE, everybody in the team was asked to say a few words—to say goodbye, reminisce about the season, share lessons learned, give thanks.



Head Coach Joe Lipa Jr., ever the mentor and tormentor, used more than a few words. To emphasize the import of his words, he would hark back to what he had already said, repeat it, this time accentuating his earnestness by chopping the air with his right hand and peppering his speech with OKs—as if to say, Are you listening to me, boys? OK?


On building character
(Number of times said: THREE)

“Boys,” Coach Joe said, in his gravelly, pongalangala voice. “So many people have taught you basketball: from your grade-school coaches to your high-school coaches. What we from the UP coaching staff really want to do is to teach you to be better men. To be good persons. Nothing is more important than that. OK?”

This is the essence of Coach Joe’s father heart, the kind that singles out character, and knows when victory is important or not important.


On hell
(Number of times said: FIVE)

The Coach, when it was his turn to speak, quoted from Coach Joe: “The road to success is always under construction.” I suspect this is where Coach Joe was coming from when he would, after already starting on another topic, suddenly remind the boys about training hell.

“Boys,” Coach Joe said, gripping the mike. “Starting next week, expect hell. OK?”

Variations of the same theme were minor:

• “We are going to start training right away. Next week will be hell. OK?”
• “Boys, expect hell! OK?”
• “We are going to work hard, boys. OK? Expect hell next week!”

That is Coach Joe’s philosophy: Work hard. Give honest labor.


On making good coaches
(Number of times said: TWO)

Turning to the other side of the lanai, Coach Joe faced his other “boys” and said, “To my coaching staff, you know that I want you to become good coaches. You also know that I am not fond of reading.* But because I want you to become good coaches and become good men, I have read many books on this, including the books of John Maxwell, so I can help you.”


Coach Joe’s strong personality and stronger convictions arouse either severe alienation or deep affection. He is like tennis star Rafa Nadal: he doesn’t leave his emotions in the locker room. He is like his friend,** Coach Bobby Knight (Indiana University): on and off the court, Coach Joe is intense and will make no bones showing what he feels.



Either you love him or you hate him.

I love him. Very much. I have witnessed through the years how he has parented The Coach as a high-school player who would hang out at the gym to watch the UP MBT practices, as a college varsity player under Coach Joe's tutelage, as a young husband to a skittish wife, and then as a coach who would strike on his own.*** I have seen how, when Coach Joe makes a decision, he thinks of what legacy he can leave the boys: he thinks of consequences, not rewards. When facing any crossroads in his life, he doesn’t have to struggle over what is right and what is wrong: he always chooses what is right. What he does struggle over are the consequences that his right choices bring to his family. But because he is deeply loved, his family—especially dear Tita Ging with her sacrificial heart—walks with him through life’s many unfair twists and turns.

Just as we, whom he counts as friends, also gladly walk with him.

Coach Joe inspires loyalty. I have yet to meet another coach who, without trying, has maintained such love and fidelity from his former players. The Coach, Coach Ramil Cruz, Ateneo Basketball Director Ricky Dandan, Rey Madrid (now an architect, who at one time also got to coach the UP MBT), Coach Bogs Adornado, NU Coach Manny Dandan (whose association with Coach Joe comes through his being Coach Ricky’s brother), and even the coaching staff of Ateneo, Coaches Sandy Arespacochaga, Jamike Jarin and Gene Afable, among many, many others****—all swear by Coach Joe’s friendship, integrity and basketball acuity.

Thank you, Coach Joe. Perhaps it’s true what you said before, that you would not ever get rich, but let me join the many who know that you have made our lives richer.




__________
* The man who claims he doesn’t want to read has written two books on basketball: the iconic Brain and Brawn Basketball and A Basketball Coach’s Guide: Philosophies, Concepts, Strategies and Drills, two books that have helped and challenged many a young coach.

** Coach Joe considers the late Coach Sonny Paguia, longtime NU coach whom The Coach also loves, more his mentor and good friend.

*** I am possibly biased, for Coach Joe often advises The Coach, “Jo, love your wife. Love Janet.” (And though he is not Cebuano, Coach Joe says my name the Cebuano way, accenting the last syllable and adding a lilt to the end. No one else says my name like he does. Each time he meets The Coach, he asks, without fail, “Kumusta na si Janet?” Always. Gentleman that he is, at least to us coaches’ wives, he would apologize for how he or the game has taken our husbands away from us—this said with a slight, courtly bow and a kind pat on the shoulder.)

**** A young coach I met this year, wowed by Coach Joe, told me that he had felt his mind explode when Coach Joe re-introduced him to basketball, at the new things he was learning.

UP players don't die...

…they just win big in their last game.

Two hours before UP’s game against powerhouse UE last Sunday, I was fixing The Coach’s UP uniform, the last time for this year. He had just come in from his Air 21 work—yes, on a Sunday, my dear hardworking hubby—to pick up his stuff before running off to coach St Stephen in its game against Jubilee at 2:30 P.M.* UP’s game started at 4 P.M., which meant The Coach would miss a chunk of the UAAP action. It didn’t seem like such a good start.

Yet everything else conspired for UP to win its last game for Season 69.




UP played well, save for a few errant, ano-ba-yan!?! passes that curdle the blood when there were only a few precious minutes left and barely three points in the margin.

But UP led all the way. No deadlocks allowed.

Latecomer Magi Sison was such a delight. He’s just a kid at heart, really, a beanpole in big basketball shoes. And he grins when he dumps a shot or gets a rebound. That is basketball—it’s supposed to be enjoyed, too.

Marvin’s brilliance lasted until the end game, thankfully. Nestor’s on-court spills (the most I’ve seen in his games this season, and I've missed a few) didn’t spoil his showmanship, and the crowd loved him for it. Woody Co—my other favorite among the boys—has been consistently stepping up in defense and offense, working both sides of the floor. Quiet and unassuming, but deadly and intense. I love this kid.

Even the referees helped; they were calling out fouls which they would’ve ignored in the previous games. Gee, the calls were close to favoring UP: not that I would’ve wanted it that way, but, boy, was it a welcome change from being on the other side of the uneven stick. I could’ve sworn the refs did not allow the margin to breach the three-point mark.

Though Binondo heaped a margin of +8 points on UP, it turns out many more bet on UP. Still scratching my head on that one, but I figure it was because it was a no-bearing game for UE.

Whattaheck, I think even UE played in favor of UP. Custodio was a dismal, almost half-hearted shade of himself. Borboran and that other UE kid, whatzisname, didn’t play well either, prompting Coach Dindo Pumaren to put in his second-stringers.

Like we did. In fact all our players were given the chance to rule the court, and I thought, hey, that’s how it should be, at least in our last game and under the circumstances.




Did the fact that it was a non-bearing game for UE play any factor in our win? Well, so what if it did? A win is a win is a win. And if you saw UP’s side of the stadium erupt in a blazon of arms in the air, posters big and small, people standing on their seats, then you’d know how much this victory is sweeter, better, longed for, and earned.




It was a good sendoff for the graduating boys—Galen, Ira and Nestor. I will miss Galen the most, because he was so committed to the game, even in what is probably the shortest stint ever in amateur basketball (barely eight months). Such a loss that we would not see him blossom further, as I know he still can.

At the post-game dinner, the host Jerry Esquivel summed it best when he said that the gathering that night was a beraka, a Hebrew word that means, loosely, a celebration—for any occasion and for any blessing. He said the Jews hold a beraka to celebrate life or a birth, as they would to celebrate death. And so it was only right that the Maroons celebrated both its victories and its defeats.

Until next year, Maroons!




* The Coach won his fourth game against Jubilee. St Stephen now leads the tourney with Chiang Kai Shek at 4-0.

UP Naming Mahal

Something interesting from one of the forums that discuss Maroons basketball: After the recent clash of the Katipuneros, while UP students and alums sang the alma mater song, one Atenean asked another why the UP hymn was in Filipino when all other school hymns were in English.

One of the UP supporters flanking the two Ateneans—no doubt also piqued that many Ateneans had invaded the seats reserved for UP—snapped: "What's more puzzling is why seven out of eight universities in the UAAP sing their hymns in English!"

Actually, the song was first written in English and titled "UP Beloved." I don't know, though, when it was translated to Filipino.

For the Maroons who only mumble when singing our school hymn, here are the lyrics (as far as The Coach and I know them; please let us know if there are any inaccuracies).

May we all indeed become what we have been called—the hope of the nation:

UP NAMING MAHAL
by Nicanor Abelardo

UP naming mahal, pamantasang hirang.
Ang tinig namin sana’y inyong dinggin.
Malayong lupain amin mang mararating
‘Di rin magbabago ang damdamin.
‘Di rin magbabago ang damdamin.

Luntian at pula, sagisag magpakailanman.
Pagdiwang natin, bulwagan ng dangal
Humayo’t itanghal giting at tapang.
Mabuhay ang pag-asa ng bayan.
Mabuhay ang pag-asa ng bayan.




Thanks to Bitoy and Sir A for pointing out the inaccuracies! :)

PR runs the world

In a CSI Miami episode, an elegant, coiffed woman who ran her own PR company blustered to the police about how her fifteen-year-old daughter was innocent and was merely driven to crime by the wiles of a criminal.

Duquesne, the blonde with the nasal voice that somehow manages to squeak, replied, “With all due respect, Ma’am, that’s just PR.”

“Yeah?” the woman retorted. “Well, the world runs on PR. Even trials.”

True?

I’m thinking: Maybe even basketball? And how we address issues affecting a team? And the league? And officiating? And, most importantly, raising support?

Hmmm.

Battle of the Katipuneros 2

Seven things distracted me from enjoying yesterday's game of the Katipuneros, a game that highlighted the best and worst of UP’s gameplay.

The seven, in no particular order:


A jackhammer behind me, about 50 to 55 years old, with gray hair and a voice that drills into your skull. Whew, grandma, what big tonsils you have!

A mother of an Atenean, she was abusing anyone who dared even clap for UP, picking fights, shouting obscenities. I was kept busy pacifying the UP supporters, players’ girlfriends and parents around me who were determined to give her an eye for an eye: “Please,” I said, “just let her be.”

Her picture is purposely blurred, dear reader, to protect her identity, for I do not wish her ill. I learned later from my Ateneo friends that she is named B, a word that can mean infantile—apropos, yes? B harangued the players, wishing them bodily harm (really) and cursing with her hands. Had she vilified The Coach, this post would not be written here but in a counter-affidavit, explaining why I leapt over the railing and slugged her.

I was told much later that photos of B had been splashed recently on a website or blog run by a student of a rival school. In a series of frames that I still have to google for, B is seen praying, eyes closed and hands together; then she is seen screaming at the court, her face distorted in anger; then, in a final act of piety, she jabs the air with her hands, both her third fingers fully extended, in the unmistakable dirty sign.

“Ano?” an Atenean said when I recounted B's recent behavior. “'Di pa ba siya natuto?” Apparently not. But she did learn to be more observant of her surroundings just in case someone nefarious, like me, would again take her photos.

After the game, B scrambled to the empty chair beside me and asked politely if I took her picture. “Yes,” I said, unperturbed but startled at her sudden courtesy. “You wanna see?” She said she had seen me clapping for Ateneo and that I looked like a nice girl (meaning I would not write something like this in my blog). She said someone had taken my picture in case I would do anything bad with the ones I took of her—like show them to the rival school, perhaps? That’s when I told her that (i) my heart is with UP when it comes to basketball; (ii) I am an Ateneo alum, Batch ‘91 Law School, passed the bar, yes, therefore a lawyer and therefore no pushover, never mind that I usually sponge help off my lawyer-friends nowadays when it comes to actual lawyering—it works well with erring MMDA, too, you know, just as it works with mothers, like it did with B. When people ask me if I regret wasting fourteen years in law school and in practice before discovering fiction, I always tell them of the time an MMDA officer wrongfully accosted me for swerving. A valid I.D. issued by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, plus tears, equals freedom from tyranny.

B smiled and said, “O.K. Thank you.” A true portrait of many a sports fan: rabid during the game, but nice afterwards. I wonder: which one is the more accurate? Perhaps both?

To be fair, there were many other UP and Ateneo fans who had been as—if not more—vituperative than B.* But since she was the one behind me, alas, she gets top billing.



Binondo (and, I was told, also Cebu, yet another fertile marketplace for game betting) pegged a +6 ½ margin on UP, which translated, of course, into wanton officiating. Sorry for this tired refrain, but, yes, drat it, the refereeing was brazenly lopsided. Fifty-one free throws given to Ateneo—the highest ever, even higher than the record 48 free throws in UP’s first game against Ateneo. Fifty-one against, what, a lousy 17 against UP! (Postscript: I know, I know. Our plays are often made away from the hoop and UP is not the most sterling in its defense, but, still, did you witness the officiating?)

We saw so many hand checks against UP, traveling by Blue Eagles, fouls by Salamat against Marvin Cruz, Ford Arao's charging (he lowered his shoulder; ergo, a charge) that was, horrors, called against Migs de Asis.



The cotton candy, which kept bobbing up and down at the end of a blue stick, was color blue. Isn’t cotton candy supposed to be pink? Yeegads, even the cotton candy girl was pro-Ateneo.








The UP walkout in the second quarter, caused by what I know is a single referee’s arrogance or stupidity. Your pick. I wanted the Maroons to just abandon the game, the sportsmanship of basketball having been sacrificed anyway to the bookies controlling the referees. But Coach Joe wanted the team to stay true to its calling, to return and play. That’s just the kind of guy he is.




Top to tip of me nervously rooting for The Coach and Coach Ramil Cruz, who, after Coach Joe had been sadly thrown out of the game, had to take up the coaching duties. I was so worried for them; it is my job to worry and get acid reflux. I was so proud of them (and so was Coach Joe; he pumped The Coach's hand later that night for "coaching well"), for they both led the team well. The Maroons ran neck and neck with the taller, stronger, older Ateneo veterans until the final quarter when, alas, Marvin became his colorless self. Marvin had played excruciatingly well in the first three quarters—he always does—which severely highlighted his lackluster** performance in the final stretch...sigh, he often does.*** I’m not assigning blame on Marvin (and this is my blog, not The Coach’s, therefore my own opinion, awright, dears? Because, yes, I have my own brain), particularly since UP was also playing against the referees (who were sloughing off our players one at a time), but had Marvin continued with his streak, it would’ve been a different ball game, in spite of.



Four intense Maroons supporters in front of me, who couldn’t help standing up despite their cushy P250 seats (P750 to P1,000 if you buy from the scalpers). They were nice girls, though, so I gave up after a while and started reading my…







…new books! Whee! Fresh from the sale at the nearby National Superstore (going on until September 17, folks), and particularly this one, Caroline See’s Making a Literary Life: Advice for Writers and Other Dreamers. It is, according to its author, for “older people who wanted to write in their youth and never got around to it.” Yowzah. That’s me, Caroline. It’s more Zen-like advice than craft, but that suits me fine. Enough to cause me to pray for more timeouts so I can read the first few chapters.

Gotta go before I ruffle more feathers. Ah, yes, the power of the written word. Matthew Broderick's character in one war movie (he was a diarist) said something like, "I learned something today. People believe in things I write. The minute I put my thoughts on paper, something magical happens. They figure if you put so much effort in writing it down, it must be true."****



* The Coach got a call sometime yesterday evening about a scuffle between UP and Ateneo supporters at the Dencio’s branch at the Araneta. I heard UP might have started it, and an Atenean might have been hurt. Sad. And sorry. For both schools, as well as the league.

** To clarify to the innumerable Marvin fans, lest they flash-mob me, I use the word lackluster to mean lacking in brilliance, which, given Marvin's extraordinariness, may mean he played only average. Which, to me, was sadly not enough.

*** Marvin is an incredible player. There is no one in today's league who can stop him. But his fourth-quarter play is killing his chances at the MVP plum. He reportedly said that he gets rattled at the end game, a condition—choking, it is called—not uncommon among, say, golfers and tennis players. He might want to work on that: it is also killing UP's chances this year. Perhaps it's unfair to foist that much responsibility on him, it's true, but the fact of the matter is that he's one of only three veterans in the team. Circumstances are such that he could either be a savior or an ordinary player.

**** A superfluous footnote--for the Polymath.

Or forever keep your peace...

The Coach and I have received a few nudges for me to continue posting about UP Men’s Basketball games. Apparently there are two forums* that provided links to this blog. I read in one discussion how my post was considered “evidence” to back up an allegation. One forum shut down a thread last Monday, and then suspended all remaining threads last Tuesday, to hose down incendiary comments and obiter dicta, hopefully not stoked further by my posts here.

Whew.

I just wanted to write about what The Coach and I look forward to each July since 1980 (for The Coach) and since 1986 (for me). Basketball is The Coach’s passion. For the game he would skip sleep. For the game he would spend time and money on training. The game has even cropped up in many a quarrel between us.

But what to write about? I hesitate to write not because UP has been losing its games, but because of the quality of those losses. Almost all of those losses should not have been, and the reasons are sad and…well, I will stop there. There’s not much I can say at this point without raising anyone’s hackles.

Still, there are other things I can share, including stuff I learned or remembered the last few days:

• We UP alums and students love our school. We will even fight each other to prove that. Which is sad, in a funny kind of way.

• At the stadium many of us fans cheer loudest when our team is leading, but predictably fall silent—perhaps in sympathetic dismay, anxiety or shock—when the team falls behind. Well, I say this is the moment our team needs our support the most. I say we should be noisier when our players are not doing as well as we hope. I say we support the team not because it’s winning, but because it’s our team.

• Many fans, even the most loyal among us, don’t know enough about basketball. Yes, including me. We cheer, jeer and analyze, but very few know the technicals of the game. We criticize and second-guess from our accountability-free vantage point, but we know so little.

• Sometimes the fan—or, yeegads, an occasional interfering parent or even a well-meaning university officer—who knows some about basketball is the more destructive. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Which leads me to my next point…

• Coaches know best.

• A coach’s job is highly political, perhaps more so for a UP coach. He has to contend with so much. More than the X’s and the O’s, he has to deal with different personalities with different perspectives and different agendas.**

• Alumni support is more often than not a Catch-22 situation, with shades of Field of Dreams: you build it, they will come. Except that to build it—a good team—you need alumni support. Which usually doesn’t come unless the team wins games. How’s that for a Gordian knot? UP, in particular, needs our support because it cannot fund its own sports programs. Many times our fundraisers entice support by proving that ours could be a winning team. But why? Support is not a commercial transaction that requires a give-and-take. We support the team, regardless. We paid a measly P500-semestral tuition in the 1980s, dagnabbit, and we can’t give back?

• A good college basketball program takes a few years to develop. We can never demand a strong finish in a coach’s early years unless the previous coach laid the foundation for a victory, and all the present coach has to do is take the pickings. There must be good recruiting beforehand, something that the Maroons, alas, will have to make up for since we didn’t do solid recruiting the last two years.

• It’s a given: schools with strong alumni support are more likely to attract the better players. Alums are crucial to the basketball program. Like I told The Coach: half of the game is won outside the court and before the season.

• The “university” portion in UAAP (University Athletic Association of the Philippines) is often overlooked and overshadowed by “athletic.” Sad.

• And, on a haha-hee hee note: the UAAP games are rated PG: Parental Guidance required. Check it out below. I can offer many reasons why, but that would violate my self-imposed gag order.

* My sparring partner Jonski, lest you flinch, I checked first if it’s all right to use forums. Heh.
** Alas, Jonski, the intricacies of using Latinate forms. I’m junking agendum and treating agenda as singular.

In spite of

What does it profit a man if he gains the entire game, but suffers the loss of his soul to Binondo?

As I write this, the UP Fighting Maroons has just struggled, laboriously, from a 16-point deficit with the FEU Tamaraws, evening out at 63-63 in the beginning of the second half. TV commentator TJ Manotoc says that it was an "uphill climb" for this "undersize team."

I do not know how this game will end. But I know one thing: I am getting tired of two "in spite of's" that plague the team. Not its small size, for that cannot be helped and the boys fight as if this is of no matter. Not its youth and inexperience, for these too cannot be helped and in some ways can work for the team.

What really vex me are the inefficient, almost manipulative refereeing and the specter of Binondo eating away at college basketball.

There are way too many examples of appalling refereeing and sadly, whether by chance or choice, most of these against UP. I watched, aghast, when in the last seconds of the game against Ateneo, the referee suddenly called a technical on UP’s Marvin Cruz for delaying the game when he tapped the ball from Kramer, giving Ateneo two free throws and ball possession. Whaaa??? Marvin’s violation was his first, which meant he should get only a warning, not a technical. The other delay on UP was slapped on the bench, and hence cannot be counted on Marvin Cruz. The technical on him was heinous: it turned the tide in favor of the Blue Eagles, as did the other stupefying calls.

Worse, in the last 21 seconds of the UP-Adamson game last Sunday, with the Falcons a mere one point ahead of UP and the Maroons with the last ball possession, the referee suddenly called an atrocious backing violation against Marvin Cruz. Whaaa??? In the repeated replays we watched, The Coach and I saw how firmly Marvin settled his foot on the backcourt waaaay before the ball reached his hands. There was no mistaking it. Immediately after the game, The Coach went to the ABS-CBN OB-van with UAAP Deputy Commissioner Ato Badolato to show him the absurdity. The Coach knew the technicals of the sport inside out: he himself had been a Deputy Commissioner of the UAAP for three years and had personally trained referees. And Commissioner Ato Badolato agreed: it was clear—there was no such violation. No call should have been made. UP should have been given 21 seconds to shoot what was probably the last ball.

But what to do? Nothing more than to probably suspend the erring referee. No other remedy can be made—for in basketball, as in life, judgment calls, however bad, are part of the game.

That gruesome call likewise decided that game. With all of 21 seconds on the Falcons' side, it could waste the time and retain its one-point lead.

My only consolation is that the Binondo bookies put a +2 margin on UP against the Falcons. But since the Falcons won by only two points, then it meant that the many who bet against UP, given the favorable odds for the Falcons, lost. Nasunog is the streetspeak for it. Many of them, hopefully, burned to a crisp.

It is now the last quarter and the Tamaraws has recovered the game, putting a comfortable 12 points. The Maroons put in what the commentators call "impossible shots," narrowing the margin to 8.

I wonder what margin Binondo gave the Maroons in this game against the Tamaraws.

Funny how the margin—a word that can mean the periphery, or blank space, or outskirts—can dictate the outcome of a game. Put enough money on a team, and the referee’s vision dims, everything seen clearly only upon hindsight and frequent replays on the VHS, and probably shelved into the catch-all limbo termed “judgment calls.” Translation: you cannot do anything about it.

It is an affliction that sadly can reach players—professional or amateur—of all teams. Oftentimes players’ shots turn awry without warning, defenses crumble, and balls fly out of the court. Five years in the PBA and MBA trained The Coach’s eye to spot dead-on when any player fools around: The Coach can map out a player’s tendencies, whether he favors his left or his right, the best way to defend him, how he takes his first step and how quick it is, his release of the ball, and if he fakes before a lay-up. A player works his body into a routine, his limbs falling into its natural rhythms. It would be against the laws of his body to suddenly fumble, against his nature to change in mid-game the release of his ball. Years ago when I would sit with The Coach when he was breaking a game down to a player’s specifics, I would hear him mutter, “Mahirap magbobo-bobohan ang matalino.”

How has the long arm of Binondo reached the UAAP? When the Metropolitan Basketball Association (MBA) burst into the scene in the late 90s and even when it petered out years later, it ate into the PBA market, which, despite furious beefing up of its ranks by recruiting Fil-Ams and Fil-Shams, barely recovered. The entry of the NBA and the U.S. NCAA into our cable TV—with their flashier, better play—dug deep into the PBA’s Achilles heel. With the public’s dwindling interest in the PBA and a redirected televised attention to college basketball, Binondo turned its eye on the more profitable UAAP.

Remember the gambling scandal unearthed about two years ago in the universities? The papers reported the massive betting made by students, from grade school to college, resulting in bookies hustling after the young ones for lost and unpaid hundreds of thousands, interest compounding. This hasn’t abated, only hushed. My friend who has a grade schooler in Ateneo said some kids still pool their money together to buy the minimum P500 bet.

Executives of a Makati bank, of which I used to be a retained counsel, would bet even on teams of which they are not alums. They would place their bets on the phone, keeping an eye on a TV set turned surreptitiously to Studio 23, while the other sets rightfully monitored the stock market and the ANC channel.

The Coach himself, when he was a Deputy Commissioner, was not spared from the tentacles of betting. When he and the other commissioners chose the referees of every game, they had to resort to an almost cloak-and-dagger system: they would call in several referees to suit up, confine them to an undisclosed room, confiscate their cell phones, and in the last minutes before a game actually starts, conduct a raffle to determine which three referees will call the game. The three are kept closeted by the commissioners while The Coach would explain to them the plays of the competing schools, as well as players’ tendencies, so they would reduce any judgment calls. In this manner the Dark Force would be hard put to invest its money on any one referee. Still, some shady characters, as well as a few school or team officials, would attempt to penetrate the raffle. How distressing that the “play” part of college ball, the part which should celebrate the game and the university, is being infected, insidiously, by big business.

Sometime into the season when he was still a Deputy Commissioner, The Coach changed his cell phone number, the only time he did so, so he could avoid calls that would only cloud his judgment. He and I prayed for God’s grace to help him all throughout. It was not easy for him and the other commissioners: juggling complaints on one side, monitoring the refereeing and staving off Binondo, which at one time plunked over P150 million on an Ateneo-DLSU game.

There. The Tamaraws just won by 8 points over my boys. My heart sinks. The commentators say that the eight rookies of UP will spell a “scary team” in the years to come. It is of little comfort to me.

I wonder: as Coach Joe Lipa talks to his boys, how will he encourage them? How will he tell them to continue to fight a good fight, in spite of? They only want to play: this is a game they love, sometimes even beyond school.

I wish Binondo would just let them play.

Battle of the Katipuneros

My two beloved alma maters slugged it out at the Ninoy Aquino stadium last Sunday. Either way I'd win. But when it comes to the hardcourt, I'm a Maroon. (I'm an Eagle only in the moot court.)

I should feel bad we lost. But it's hard to be morose because my boys fought well, as well as they could given the breaks of the game and terrible refereeing (and, no, I'm not just saying that; The Coach just finished splicing the videotapes of the game to ferret out the too many bad calls on UP).

Binondo bettors had given our boys an advantage +4 margin, underscoring yet again the stark 3-inch differential between the two teams. My classmate at the Ateneo nicknamed our team the UP Midgets. He’s an RTC judge: who am I to tell His Honor to get lost?

The refs gave our boys a hard time. We were losing players, fast. Coach Joe Lipa wrung his hands in frustration. “Jerry!” he barked, calling out to the Maroons support staff handing out towels to the players evicted from the game. "Ikaw na nga ang maglaro! Inubos na nila players natin!”

The refs gave Ateneo an all-time high 49 free throws and slammed on UP a record 8 or so calls on traveling. Three or so years ago, DLSU Coach Franz Pumaren stormed the UAAP Commissioner’s office because the refs gave the opposing team 39 free throws—almost statistically improbable. And now the refs gave the Eagles 49 free throws? It meant Ateneo had to work for only a measly 50 points to win.

UP edged out Ateneo in other areas—rebounding, assists, two- and three-pointers. The game, alas, was decided on the free throws.

The Coach is careful not to give in to the conspiracy theories floating about; he’d rather think the refs were simply not trained well, pointing out that there were also a few (only a few!) bad calls on Ateneo. Others, however, unabashedly made connections between the timing and quality of the calls to the +4 betting in Binondo.

The Peyups forum, as expected, is crammed with catcalls and cussing, in which I am tempted to join if not for The Coach’s equanimity about the loss. The Coach knows they still have to work out some of the Maroons’ bad decisions, like not boxing out, and acknowledges the team’s youth. But he is proud of his boys’ hustle, of Galen Cacha, who was just pulled out from the Intrams and started learning how to play only six months ago, yet became a rebounding force. (I think I heard The Coach or someone call him Cacha Gotcha. Never mind that Cacha missed 8 free throws.)

The past two-and-a-half days, The Coach wore down our VHS, playing and rewinding by the microsecond the UP-Ateneo game, checking for flaws in the refereeing, as well in the UP play. I told him my heart was breaking listening to the endless rewinding of our loss, and he said, “Why? We fought a good fight.”

Big hearts, big fight. What more could a fan want?


* Picture of the basketball hoop is not mine. Caught it in one of my trawling trips but, regrettably, can't remember from whose site I borrowed it.

Maroon-ong

The boys were not meant to win. Bookies and bet makers in Binondo heaped on them an advantage +8 points, which means those betting on them would win even if these boys lose the game with not more than an 8-point margin.

Only 4 of the twelve were returning players; the rest were rookies—bright-eyed, skittish, and alternating between excited and nervous. They were a small bunch. When they did the regulatory round robin, they looked puny compared with the UST beanpoles. “Maliit pala tayo, no?” mourned my seatmate, a UP alum. He was perturbed by the two- to three-inch differential between the two squads.

So was I. The UST Tigers were bigger and more athletic, enjoying a deeper bench of 10 veterans: in fact, they were able to substitute an entire platoon in the first half. But I have been a coach’s wife for twelve years to know that the biggest factor in any game is a good coach. And that the Fighting Maroons have: three coaches unafraid to lose their jobs to do what is right.




Under these coaches' care, the boys became steeped in the basics and technicals. They bled Maroon.




The boys suffered first two quarters of bad calls—so bad that in some instances the entire UP bench exploded to their feet, head coach Joe Lipa almost stormed the commissioners’ table, and The Coach stomped to the technical committee with his drill board. But no amount of hairline refereeing could have doused the fires out of the boys.

It was a cardiac game. The first half ended with UP leading by only two points: 45-43.




Which didn’t improve much by the end of the third quarter, with UP just one step ahead at 65-64.



The boys played like they weren’t rookies: Migs de Asis sunk in six triples, and Martin Reyes made four. At one point the UP team that ran the court was composed of four rookies and one sophomore.



The veterans did very well, too: Marvin Cruz—whose first step is quick and explosive—contributed 25 points (his highest in the amateurs, apparently), what with the plays designed for him in the mismatches.



Ira Buyco, my big bald baby, hustled well—which wasn’t limited to the usual rebounding and defending, but also included a stray [but legitimate] elbow here and there. In the game it was to Buyco that the young ones ran to to whine that so-and-so hit him, and Buyco would step up and give that so-and-so a piece of his, well, elbow. Tee hee.




It was pingpong basketball: the Maroons threw a 3-pointer, the Tigers responded. The Tigers sunk in a lay-up, and so did the Maroons. Yet another 3-pointer from the Tigers, and the Maroons followed suit: each side refusing to give in.

In the last two minutes, the score was skewed four points in favor of UP, partly due to the technical slapped on the UST head coach Pido Jarencio who barged into the court.




Which, alas, slipped to an even 92-92 in the final 12 seconds. The game was fast and furious, so much running and gunning. I couldn’t breathe anymore.





I wanted so much for UP to win its first game.

For Coach Joe Lipa, who is The Coach’s mentor, second father and ninong, from whom he inherited the reengineered swearword, “Pongalangala.” (There’s a story behind that. Tell you at another time.) These coaches love UP so much that they work even without pay. In the eight months that The Coach has dashed from his 9PM-5AM FedEx night shift to the 6AM UP practice before stopping for abbreviated sleep and then running to his 5PM St. Stephen basketball practice, UP paid him an allowance only thrice—a pittance not enough to cover his gasoline and food expenses.

But any one who is a purist about basketball knows coaching, like writing, isn’t about the money. It never was. The Coach is never happier than when he teaches college or high school kids who would dive for the ball. College ball is a coach’s game, where skills are taught and strategy pitted against strategy; professional basketball, on the other hand, is more of a players’ game. (Which is why The Coach wasn’t as happy when he did his PBA and MBA stints, though money was abundant. Then.)

Back to the game: UP had the ball in the last 12 seconds, and the score was even-Steven.




In the crucial huddle, Coach Joe directed the boys to spread the offense to give the best offensive player enough space to maneuver, the best being, of course, Marvin Cruz. Marvin dribbled a few precious seconds off the clock (to take the last shot and prevent UST from taking one), ran to the shaded area where three big men were waiting to pounce on him, leapt and shot the ball on a short jumper. It went in! The coliseum erupted in cheers, with less than one second remaining.

The Coach sang “UP Naming Mahal” like he always does—with conviction, even in the odd moments like when we’re in the car or in the house. He has never known another school except UP, he having been trained there since he was five years old.




Outside the Ninoy Aquino stadium, the moon joined the celebration, shining like a pearl.




Later, at the Zong resto at The Fort, the game gets even better in the retelling.