My last dance for Bandera

WITHOUT question, during this long period of the quarantine, watching TV is one of the most popular activity, if you can call sitting down in front of the television an activity at all.

And for me, YouTube and Netflix were lifesavers what with all the choices they offer, movies, documentaries, features, musical videos of the 60’s and the 70’s. The list is limitless.

For sports fans, definitely there is a glut of features, whatever sport you prefer. Mine has been boxing and basketball. I even saw myself on YouTube in an interview by Solar Sports in 2018 in Legazpi City for the Asian Paratriathlon Championship. I was then active with the Philippine Paratriathlon Committee.

For basketball though, on top of the list was The Last Dance series about the final year of the Chicago Bulls title run featuring Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and coach Phil Jackson, who coined the term for his final year with the team.

Actually, Michael had the option to remain and team GM Jerry Krause would have made room for him but not for the other players and Phil, something MJ refused to go with, and so it became a mission for the team to win the NBA title for the last time as a group.

And win they did for a second three peat.

Now why did I focus on this TV feature among others?

Well, if that was the Bulls’ last dance, for me this is my last chance in turn, my final opportunity to share my thoughts with readers in Bandera, and I have been doing this for a long long time with this newspaper under my sports editor and friend Frederick Nasiad.

You see, this paper will be closing down by July 5 and us contributors and writers were told a month before about this sad news, the result directly or indirectly by this pandemic, causing financial losses as it has done for a lot of other businesses.

I can understand the business part of it, being a business decision on the part of the owners, but then it does not reduce the sadness on my part with parting ways with something I have been doing for a long long time. All the adventures I have shared, sentiments I have expressed on various issues in the world of sports, semi features on sports personalities, and a thousand and one other subject matter, definitely I will miss the opportunity of sharing them to you.

After all, having been dabbling in sports since 1977, I have been semi retired and this piece allows me to retain my connection to sports.

For this I say a big thank you to Bandera and to all those who have followed me here. And as for the future, I really do not know what I will be doing in sports. Do I look for another paper and continue my piece, or at this age, I also say goodbye to sports writing?
Who knows?