Reyes stays on as Coke mentor

Chot Reyes is keeping his job as Pop Cola head coach after all.

Top officials of San Miguel Corp. have decided to let Reyes continue calling the shots for the Coca Cola Tigers, formerly Pop Cola Panthers, in the coming PBA season. The decision ended weeks of speculations on who would hold the coaching rein in the ballclub after it was included in SMC’s purchase of the Cosmos Bottling Corp. from RFM.

At presstime, Reyes was in a meeting with SMC top official Jun Cabalan discussing details of their contract. The job was first offered to former Ginebra coach Rino Salazar, who is now based in Alaska.

With his contract to be extended by the SMC management, Reyes is given the chance to pursue the three-year program he said he designed particularly for Pop Cola.

The former Ateneo player in the UAAP sees an exciting campaign for the Tigers in the coming 2002 PBA season with the team having a good shot at shoring up its lineup through the draft and the trade market. Pop Cola owns the No. 2 and No. 8 picks in the draft this year.

"When I signed up with this team, our target really was to become a championship contender on the third year of my program. Actually, medyo napaaga dahil naging contender na kami last year," said Reyes.

"This year maganda ang chance namin dahil makakapagpalakas kami through the draft. We can also build up a new team because most of our players have expired contracts," he added.

Curiously, only three players have live contracts with Pop Cola. These are Rudy Hatfield, Ato Morano and Jovy Sese.

Ready to become free agents on Jan. 1 are Johnny Abarrientos, Poch Juinio, Jojo Lastimosa, Nelson Asaytono, Pido Jarencio, William Antonio, Chris Bolado, Estong Ballesteros, Allan Gamboa and Mon Jose.

Over at the Airfreight 2100/FedEx camp, team official Lito Alvarez and coach Derrick Pumaren were to talk again via overseas call late last night , hoping to finally reach an agreement.

Meanwhile, the PBA Commissioner’s Office will screen all the 81 applicants to the 2002 Draft today and will come up with the final list of those eligible Friday morning.

Players who filled up application forms but have yet to submit the necessary papers to confirm their eligibility have until the end of regular office hours today to forward their documents.

At presstime, less than half of that number has completed the requirements and only two of several dozen Fil-foreign players have submitted Department of Justice confirmation of their Filipino citizenship.

Romel Adducul has yet to get his release papers from the MBA while Chris Clay, Jeffrey Flowers and Mike Cortez do not have papers to show from the DoJ at the moment.