I WAS neither tall nor muscular enough to be involved in varsity basketball as a teener at Xavier School. In short (no pun intended), I was simply not good enough to wear the school colors during my high school days.
Notwithstanding the fact, my passion for basketball never wavered a bit. I chose the next best thing: Be a die-hard hoops fan and a student of the game by chronicling the developments in the sport here and overseas. To later be a sports journalist (which I eventually became in June 1981) was farthest from my mind at the time.
Soccer, or what it is now internationally known as “football,” was an alternative sport for me as I can do a fast number anytime and everywhere on the field. Looking back, I probably would have looked real good in track – run and run as fast as you can.
But basketball was my first love and it’s true, first love never dies.
Dr. James Naismith’s invention caught my fancy at an early age because of the Philippines’ dominance in the Asian scene that earned the Filipino cagers tickets to the Summer Olympics and World Basketball Championship (known as the FIBA World Cup since 2014) during the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.
My eldest brother, now aged 72, often would bring me to the games in the Philippine National Seniors basketball tournament (also known as the National Open at the time), an anything-goes-competition where colleges and universities, government institutions, commercial clubs and even movie and recording companies vie for the national championship.
Another destination is the popular Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association (MICAA) league, the harbinger of the professional Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), with its All-Filipino and imports-spiced menu.
For the record, I bled bloody red and was a dyed-in-the-wool Yco fan come hell or high water.
The Yco Redshirts/Painters, who were owned by sportsman Don Manolo Elizalde, and the Ysmael Steel Admirals, who were owned by prominent industrialist Felipe (Baby) Ysmael, lorded it over in the National seniors during the fifties and sixties.
Spearheaded by burly slotman Carlos (Caloy) Loyzaga, the Redshirts/Painters clustered a record seven straight national championships from 1954 to 1960. Then it was the turn of Ysmael Steel, bannered by national players Adriano Papa Jr., Jaime Mariano, Narciso Bernardo, Engracio Arazas, Alfonso Marquez and Manuel Jocson, to romp away with six consecutive crowns from 1961 to 1966.
In 1967, the Admirals sought to duplicate Yco’s feat but losses to the Yutivo Opels – led by Rogelio (Tembong) Melencio, Ernesto Morales and Clemente Vargas – and to the Yco Painters in the four-team, single-round championship phase pushed Ysmael Steel out of finals contention.
As a self-imposed punishment for their twin debacles, the Admirals players and coaching staff, led by bench boss Valentin (Tito) Eduque, showed up for their third-place game against Puyat Steel at the old Rizal Memorial Coliseum with their heads cleanly shaved.
The then-unprecedented “bald” act, of course, was duplicated during the mid-1990s when the entire Sunkist squad, from the players down to head mentor Joseller (Yeng) Guiao to team manager Elmer Yanga, also showed up for a PBA contest with bald heads following a disastrous defeat.
The Yco Painters eventually regained the National Seniors crown in 1967 by shellacking the Opels in the title game. Mentored by Loyzaga, the red-shirted Painters were powered by then-fresh college grads Robert (Sonny) Jaworski (University of the East) and Danilo Florencio (University of Santo Tomas) and veterans Freddie Webb, Renato (Sonny) Reyes, Elias Tolentino Jr., Edgardo Roque, Edgardo Ocampo and Edgardo Gomez.
More on local basketball during its halcyon days next time.
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