Cordova wants coaches to toe the line

CEBU, Philippines - Sports officials in the town of Cordova, particularly the organizers of the 6th Mayor Addy Sitoy's Cup, are now facing the big challenge of disciplining the basketball coaches during the nightly games at the Cordova Sports Complex.

The Mayor Addy Sitoy's Cup also features volleyball, tennis and chess tournaments as part of the town's fiesta celebration on August 15.

Cordova town councilor and overall chairman of the Sports Committee Simgil "Em-em" Sitoy said that they are now in the process of instilling discipline on all coaches especially in basketball where they would always encounter problems particularly on proper bench decorum.

Boy Allan Lataza, a former UV Lancer and USC Warrior varsity who is a member of the technical committee, said that even assistant coaches and sometimes players want to become coaches and they even referee the games sometime so that they will get the decision they wanted.

There are a total of 46 teams seeing action in the basketball tournament broken down as follows -- 28 in the juniors division, 18 in the SK division, 6 teams in the Open division and 4 teams in the seniors division.

The tournament started last May 26 and is now entering in the semifinal round.

During the finals on Saturday, there will be a preliminary game between the UV Baby Lancers against Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu.

According to Lataza, there were already 10 teams, which have violated the eligibility rule but they have already solved the problem by forfeiting the games in favor of the other team. He said that they made sure the rule is implemented to level the playing field and make the competition more balanced.

Sitoy said that the champion team will receive P30 thousand, the second placer gets P20 thousand, the third placer will receive P10 thousand and the fourth placer P5 thousand.

Aside from Sitoy and Lataza, the other Cordova sports officials who were invited yesterday in the SCOOP forum of Bobby Inoferio were SK chairman Argeo Toring and technical committee members Antonio Pogoy and Michael Vilarin. (FREEMAN)