When stars collide

Every year, we gather in an annual event that we always look forward to as a Cebu sportswriting community. It’s the Sportswriters Association of Cebu-San Miguel Brewery Cebu Sports Awards that brings together us sportswriters and the athletes who we cover and follow. Yesterday, we had the 30th edition of the event which was started by our elders way, way back.

As I run through the list of awardees (and those who didn’t make it), I can’t help but notice that we have sports heroes in our midst. We often talk about the Michael Jordans and Kobe Bryants of the sports world and we idolize them. But we often forget that we have our local sports heroes who may not be as popular as our foreign idols, but who are heroes just the same. They may not be all world beaters, but from them we learn how to excel and rise to the top of whatever endeavour we go into. And the common denominator that one can easily notice is that all of them are determined to succeed. When you gather top athletes from different events, it’s a tremendous learning experience. When we cover events, we’re stuck to the participants of that particular event. But when we gather Cebu’s list of “Who’s who” in Cebu sports, it broadens our horizons and wakes us up that there’s so much more out there to appreciate in sports.

 Strange it may seem but at yesterday’s affair, we gave a posthumous award to Melinda Ponce, an ultra runner who fell in love with running during the latter part of her life. She wasn’t a Lydia de Vega or an Elma Muros. She was a regular mother with a regular day job who also happened to love running. She was like an “ordinary Joe” just like any of us. And she excelled. She clicked. Her tragic death instantly made her a model for all those ordinary people in the street. If she can do it, we can do it, too. Through her intercession, we might just get a second wind of a boom of lady runners. From Ponce, we go to the likes of Grandmaster Richard Bitoon and boxing world champion Donnie Nietes. Like Ponce, not too many people know these two world beaters. I don’t even think they know one another (personally). And it’s this simplicity coupled with humility that makes them so much more admirable. Their triumphs abroad could very well be the just reward for being such simple athletes without the “ego” of superstars.

The affair also showed that the youth stand brave and tall in Cebu sports. When Jacob Lagman, Jette Calderon, Craig Anthony Pantino, Gio Gandionco, Paolo Pascual, LJ Go and other young awardees grow to become adults and look back at today, they’ll recognize that very much a part and parcel of their success is the abundance of support that they get from their parents. We’ll all be grateful for everything that the parents have done for their children, but we often times forget this.

And then we have the “other” sports heroes. Cebu sports isn’t all about basketball and boxing. We’re also rich in talent in the “not so popular” events, a feat which should open our eyes to discovering the other disciplines where we have a more realistic chance of winning international events. Have you heard of Pencak Silat and Sepak Takraw? Cebu has sports heroes in these events, too. Dragon Boat racing and Rugby are relatively new, but Cebuanos are part of its rise. And then we have the heroes of more “other” sports like athletics, badminton, baseball, softball, taekwondo, autocross, dancesport, motocross, weightlifting, table tennis, karatedo, running, triathlon and swimming.

All of them achievers. All of them represent the many more sports heroes out there who move unnoticed and unrecognized but who stand out in their own right. Last night, they stood tall for a moment away from their courts, race courses or playing fields. And they all deserved to be up there.

In a virtual collision of the stars.

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Time-out: Happy birthday to Rey Canete and Jonas Panerio. >>> You can reach me at [email protected]