Partners in hoops

CHICAGO — I hadn’t slept for 30 hours and my eyes began to droop. But let’s start the story from the beginning.

I left Manila on a Northwest Airlines flight early last Monday. Checking in was a breeze, thanks to Northwest’s superb ground staff. At the waiting lounge, I bumped into writer and publicist Donnie Ramirez who was en route to Las Vegas on a press junket via Nagoya. My first destination was San Francisco via Narita.

The flight to Narita took three hours. No problem. The breakfast was excellent. The ride was comfortable. And the service was impeccable. The two-hour layover in Narita wasn’t too bad. Then, I boarded the plane for the nine-hour ride to San Francisco. I got in at about 9 a.m., Monday, and spent the day with relatives. That night, Luisito Espinosa’s manager Noel Rivera and his father Hermie brought me to the airport for my midnight flight to Chicago via Minneapolis. The Riveras filled me on Louie’s proposed fight in Daly City this October during dinner.

My Northwest flight took off at about 1 a.m. for Minneapolis. The stopover was only an hour and by 2 a.m., I was en route to Chicago. The next leg was three hours long and because of the time change, I landed here at 8 a.m., Tuesday. A car then brought me to Porter Athletic Equipment Co. headquarters in Broadview, a Chicago suburb which is a 30-minute drive from busy O’Hare Airport.

Waiting at Porter was Vic Eugenio, president of Universal Sports which has distributed the company’s products in the Philippines since 1991. Vic flew in from Manila the week before. His trip was a prize from Porter for topping a world-wide sales contest–he registered 160 percent over quota. I was invited to check out Porter’s facilities before proceeding to Indianapolis for the World Basketball Championships.

Porter backboards and hoops are found in 14 National Basketball Association (NBA) arenas, including the Staples Center in Los Angeles and the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. It controls 52 percent of the total US market in basketball systems installations and last year, posted sales of $35 Million.

Porter was founded in 1868 and initially manufactured pulleys, hardware and hayloft equipment for barns. In 1905, the company redirected its focus to sports equipment. Last year, Porter posted sales of $35 Million of which 80 to 85 percent came from basketball.

In the Philippines, Porter systems are used at the PhilSports Arena, Ynares Center, Makati Coliseum, Centro Escolar University in Bulacan, the General Santos City gym, San Sebastian College, Far Eastern University, the Cantada Sports Center in Bicutan, and the Brent School in Mamplasan, among others.

As I walked into Porter’s offices, my head was in a spin. Counting the hours from when I left Manila, it took over 22 hours to finally reach Chicago and it wouldn’t be another eight hours before I hit the sack for a short afternoon nap.

Porter’s international sales manager Carlos Castellon was a gracious host. Carlos is Cuban and has visited the Philippines thrice to support Vic’s activities. He left Havana as a teenager in 1961 and landed in Miami. Before joining Porter in 1995, he worked as a grade school teacher and sold pharmaceuticals for a Swiss company.

Carlos and Vic are so much alike. They share the same interests–music, good food, and basketball. No wonder they get along. They’re almost like brothers. They also swear by Porter.

Vic said Porter sets the industry standards. Carlos agreed. The record shows that Porter invented the fan-shaped backboard, the glass backboard, the center-strut feature which makes its backboards shatter-proof, the testing mechanism to measure the "reboundability" of a rim, and many more. It offers a lifetime guarantee for glass backboards. In the works is a so-called torque-flex hoop which features a snap-back not only in front but also on the sides.

For over 12 years, Porter has worked closely with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) in the area of hoops technology.

Carlos said after a dunk, a Porter goal stops shaking in less than three seconds–something no competition can match.

Only a third of Porter’s 120,000 square foot facility in Broadview is for office space. The rest is for production–proof of the importance it places on the quality of its products. At least four truckloads of steel are delivered every week. Carlos estimated an $18 Million order pipeline and said the company should easily generate $39 Million in sales next year.

About 40 percent of Porter’s production staff is Hispanic. The work is labor-intensive because a glass backboard, for instance, is made by hand–18 are produced each shift in a day. There are about 230 Porter employees and their origins are traced to over 10 countries, including Vietnam, China, Belize, Brazil, and the Philippines.

The two Filipino employees are Roy Vasquez, 53, and Carlo Ramos, 33. Roy, a Mangaldan, Pangasinan, native, has worked the last 20 years at Porter, starting as a spot welder in the assembly group. His wife Lilia works in a Chicago bank. Carlo migrated to Chicago after graduating at La Salle Lipa high school some 20 years ago. He has an Associate in Arts diploma at the International Telecommunications Technology in Hoffman, a nearby suburb, and began working as a Porter engineer in 1999. His wife Josefina Gonzalez used to work at La Salle Greenhills and is now employed in a Chicago medical laboratory. They both said they couldn’t be happier at Porter.

Aside from basketball systems, Porter also manufactures equipment for volleyball (including a ceiling-mounted system that makes drilling holes on a court unnecessary), soccer, tennis, and lacrosse. It also makes bicycle racks, divider curtains for arenas, and a host of other steel fabrications.

Carlos said an Australian group assembles some Porter equipment–sourcing critical components from headquarters and welding big steel parts for such hot sellers as ceiling-mounted goals. He disclosed that Porter is in the process of finalizing a joint venture with the Tianjin government to manufacture selected products–including a low-cost, high-quality fiberglass rectangular backboard–in China. Carlos said with Chinese labor, Porter may be able to dramatically reduce the cost of a glass backboard, volleyball mechanisms, and basketball portables.

Carlos credited Porter’s innovations to its president Greg Hege, a team of 30 highly-trained engineers and a corps of passionate salesmen who know the game like Pennsylvania regional manager and former New York Knicks forward Toby Knight. He said Porter’s volleyball product manager Janine Makar was a former All-American at Northwestern University and is spearheading the company’s development in the sport.

Porter, incidentally, is the official basketball equipment supplier of the World Championships in Indianapolis. That’s no surprise.