Basketball is a universal language | Bandera

Basketball is a universal language

Henry Liao |June 03,2019
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Basketball is a universal language

Henry Liao - June 03, 2019 - 08:45 PM

WIN some basketball games and lose some games. Fine, but they don’t really matter. No one team loses when it practices sportsmanship during the course of a game.

That’s exactly what happened during the trip of the 19 kids (divided into Red and Green teams) from the Coach D Elite Camp ranging age nine to 12 that embarked on a nine-day odyssey to Kuala Lumpur and Penang in Malaysia from May 23-30.

The kids, they were prim and proper on and off the court throughout the sojourn. I know it well for I was there during their entire tournament play – with as many as four games being played by them from sunrise to sundown in consecutive days at that.

The boys ventured into such venues as a public elementary school SJKC Han Ming in Puchong, Selangor where the Red Team from the Camp emerged victorious against their older and heftier Malaysian counterparts, played a one-day tournament at SJK (C) Taman Connaught Elementary School from early morning to late afternoon and partook on a number of tuneups at the state-of-the-art facility at the newly-built International School of Kuala Lumpur for a couple of days against young athletes from other foreign countries before embarking to an exotic paradise in Penang Island where the kids, their parents and the coaching staff of Domeng Unson, Lito Vergara and Harold Ng breezed the air at the stunningly well-maintained Golden Sands Resort by the bay for three days. During the first two days, the kids saw action in an Under-13 Invitational Basketball Championship that was organized by the SRJK Chung Hwa Confucian B and sponsored by the Youngsters Basketball Club at the Chung Ling gym. That two-day, three-to-four-games-a-day competitions saw the host team romping away with the title and the Coach D Elite Camp Red Team finishing third and the Green Team fourth in the six-team race.

Coach Unson only has nice words for the kids. Said Unson: “Without any set plays, defensive package or offensive patterns, the kids pitted skills against older and more organized varsity teams from Malaysia the best way they could and reach closer to their deepest potential, simply banking on their survival instincts. In some games, the kids’ parents coached the teams also for them to experience the games as bench tacticians. Congratulations to all the parents and the players.”

The various activities, such as the shopping spree, food tripping, swimming at Golden Sands Resort and, of course, the competition experience, are some of the memories that the kids are unlikely to forget easily.

The Coach D Elite Camp was set up seven years ago by enterprising businessman Andrew Ong, who owns the local Gong Cha franchise, in partnership with Unson, an assistant coach with the juniors and seniors teams of the University of the East Red Warriors in the upcoming University of Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) wars.

Behind the success of the Camp are the generous people from Microsmith Technology Systems Inc., Davies Paint, Megapower Industrial Mill Supply, AXA, Tes Advertising Agency, Commodore Maritime Solutions, Octagon Tires and Accessories, M-Drive Auto Refinisher, Concepts, and A Mesina Metal Craft.

This early, there are plans to send the kids from the Coach D Elite Camp abroad again, this time possibly in Taipei.

Basketball, after all, is a universal language.

 

MEMBERS of the 70-member delegation from the Coach D Elite Camp pose for a photo at the International School of Kuala Lumpur facility in Malaysia.

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