TODAY’S column honors the greatest Filipino basketball player of all time, Carlos (Caloy) Loyzaga, who marks his 85th birthday on August 29.
To chronicle Loyzaga’s cage exploits is to immortalize Philippine basketball’s most glorious moments during the 1950s and 1960s.
A rarity for his ability to play all three play positions – center, guard and forward – with equal efficiency, the bull-strong, multi-dimensional Loyzaga was at his finest in overseas competitions.
No other prominent Filipino basketball athlete since the 1900s – active or retired – has had more experience at the international level than Loyzaga, who was known as “The Big Difference,” “The Great Difference” and “King Caloy” during his heyday for his scintillating court performance.
The 6-foot-3, 200-pound Loyzaga wore the Philippine national colors on 10 occasions, including four stints outside of the Asian region, the most memorable of which came during the 2nd FIBA World Basketball Championship (now known as the FIBA Basketball World Cup) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1954.
In that quadrennial meet, the Philippines grabbed the bronze medal for the highest finish ever by an Asian country in FIBA World Cup annals.
Our boys finished with a 6-3 record overall and Loyzaga ranked third in scoring in the tournament with a 16.4-point average in nine appearances, including a high of 33 points against Uruguay in the Filipinos’ final game, to earn a berth on the five-man All-Tournament Team.
In two other stints on the world stage, Loyzaga starred for the Philippine Olympic team during the 1952 Summer Games in Helsinki, Finland (3-2, ninth place) and the 1956 Summer Games in Melbourne, Australia (4-4, seventh place). He also was a hands-down selection to see action in the 1960 Olympiad in Rome, Italy but failed to join the Nationals due to a broken right wrist he sustained while playing softball at the old Cortabitarte Field, which is now the site of the Ospital ng Maynila.
Remarkably, the mestizo-looking Loyzaga was a champion in all of his six stints in the Asian scene.
He secured a gold medal in each of his four Asian Games stints – 1951 New Delhi, India (4-0), 1954 Manila, Philippines (6-0), 1958 Tokyo, Japan (6-1) and 1962 Jakarta, Indonesia (7-0) – and two more in the Asian Basketball Confederation tournaments (now known as the FIBA Asia Championship) – 1960 Manila, Philippines (9-0) and 1963 Taipei, Taiwan (9-2).
The 1962 Asian Games marked the last time that the country had brought home the men’s basketball gold.
Loyzaga put together a stunning 58-14 record overall during his illustrious playing tenure with the Philippine national team.
Moreover, Caloy, a product of San Beda College, amassed a total of 25 gold medals in his 15-year playing career that ended abruptly in 1964 at age 34 due to a chronic knee ailment.
On the day he hung up his jersey, the prominent national newspaper, “The Manila Times,” paid tribute to Loyzaga with this declaration: “Philippine basketball lost its toughest pillar with the retirement of Carlos Loyzaga, undoubtedly the greatest cager the country has ever produced. The retirement of Caloy brings to an end 15 years of solid performance both in local and international courts, an enviable record which no one in the whole of Asia would probably be able to match.”
That was a long, long time ago. Yet the MT tribute still rings true until now.
Happy birthday, King Caloy!