Reminiscing the past with Vito | Bandera

Reminiscing the past with Vito

Lito Cinco |March 21,2019
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Reminiscing the past with Vito

Lito Cinco - March 21, 2019 - 09:30 PM

ASIDE from his teammates with Crispa in the early ‘80s, those who played against him from the other teams and diehard basketball fans of old, only a few will remember Vito Orcullo.

After all, this was the time that my sportswriting career was revolving around basketball and marathon. The MICAA then the PABL was my regular beat where I watched and interviewed a lot of players who eventually ended up in the PBA, although it was a different story for Vito.

I had a recent dinner with him in Makati after around 40 years though we got together on Facebook about a year ago. He used to play for the Crispa amateur team in the MICAA and later on with Paul Jordan in the PABL I think. This was after finishing his studies at the Ateneo de Davao where he played for the varsity team. I was raising funds last year for our paratriathletes and Vito was one of those who simply told me he will help and did.

And it was a good decision for him to finish his schooling first before he tried out his luck playing basketball. He told me he already knew that he had to have a backup in case his basketball stint does not work out. Plus of course basketball, unless you are a superstar player is not a long term career, more so now.

Vito was a heady point guard in the mold of a Mike Bilbao, plays basic basketball, cool and collected, and with a nice shooting touch from the outside that then coach Ciso Bernardo appreciated. Bernardo gave Vito ample playing time to call the shots for a team that included among others UST’s big three in Ed Cordero, Edmund Yee and Frank Natividad, Ateneo’s Bambi Kabigting and Noli Banate.

Unfortunately for them as team owner Danny Floro was lamenting, Crispa could only finish third most of the time behind powerhouse teams APCOR, boasting of national players and mostly FEU-based plus gunner Mon Cruz, and YCO-Tanduay, with the likes of San Beda stalwarts Chito Loyzaga, Frankie Lim and JB Yango leading the team.

But Vito remembers the two championships won by Crispa abroad which includes winning the Panin Cup in Indonesia. From what I heard, Rudy Distrito was a fan favorite there, impressed with the guy’s tough style of playing and just a bit of digression. It was in the Panin Cup where colleague and Sports Weekly Magazine’s columnist Pyke Jocson died after a team dinner.

According to Vito, it was the same Pyke who named him among the members of the Mythical Five in the MICAA as Pyke’s personal choice. And believe me, Pyke knew his basketball and knew the good players from the marginal players.

Just like many amateur players then, Vito wanted to play in the PBA and with the national team — the two unfulfilled basketball dreams in his life. He was supposed to tryout in 1984 when tragedy struck. He was hit by a leg injury from which he never recovered fully, destroying his chances if ever, to don the national colors and at the same time bidding his PBA aspirations goodbye.

That was the year that his backup plan of working on a corporate job paid off as he had corporate stints with insurance companies and presently he is a branch manager for Sunlife with more than 300 people under his wing. Actually, we met that night with his wife Rose to discuss the team building sessions I will conduct in Mt. Banahaw for his four sales teams as he was very interested in an adventure team bonding.

Vito also got tapped when he was with the Davao All Stars and MBA as team manager of the Davao Eagles. Unfortunately in the waning years of the league, Davao could not get past Bacolod or Cebu in the playoffs and the regional championships.

At 64 years old, Vito still looks trim and says he still follows basketball but only on television. He was reminiscing the days when after his injury and had to retire from the game, he was seeing a lot of his teammates and contemporaries playing already in the professional league and wondering how he would have fared out in the PBA, confident as he was that he could. Again I agree, seeing his court generalship with Crispa then.

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Truth is, he says he will return to basketball, in what capacity he has no idea yet but made it clear that it will happen one of these days.

For me, Vito is an example of how basketball players should prepare for the future. In his case, he did not even reach the PBA but with where he is now, he is definitely much better off than a lot of those contemporary players who went ahead and saw action in the PBA, good for him.

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