The 6-foot-9 Taulava easily beat the only other player nominated for the professional basketball player of the year award, Rudy Hatfield of Coca-Cola, for another big individual honor, capping a season that saw him power Talk ‘N Text to its first-ever championship in the Philippine Basketball Association.
And just two weeks ago, the man they called ‘The Rock’ was also the overwhelming winner of the pro league’s Most Valuable Player award, the first foreign-bred player to do so after Ricardo Brown of Great Taste Coffee in 1985.
Like Taulava, Yap also had a banner year in amateur basketball, one which saw him win the UAAP MVP trophy, and anchor University of the East to another Final Four stint before capping his 2003 stint by leading the RP-Cebuana Lhuillier team to the Southeast Asian Games title.
Taulava and Yap are in the short list of major awardees to be feted during the Awards Night sponsored by Red Bull and Agfa Colors and supported by San Miguel Corp., Philippine Sports Commission (PSC), Philippine Olympic Committee (POC), Samsung, Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) and Manila Mayor Lito Atienza.
President Macapagal-Arroyo is expected to grace the affair and personally hand out the awards to the athletes.
Aside from Taulava and Yap, other major award recipients are Dorothy Delasin, women’s golf; Wind Blown, horse of the year; Mark Paragua, chess; Arnel Quirimit, pro cycling; Patty Dilema, jockey of the year; and Harry Tañamor, amateur boxing.
People’s consensus world featherweight champion Manny Pacquiao, also the reigning International Boxing Federation (IBF) super bantamweight titlist, and bowling World Cup hero Christian Jan (CJ) Suarez head the awardees as co-winner of the prestigious Athlete of the Year plum.
In another big highlight of the two-hour rites, the sportswriting fraternity will confer on golfing greats Celestino Tugot and Ben Arda the Hall of Fame awards, their rewards for leaving an enviable records in golf achieved mostly in the sixties and early seventies.
At the same affair, the 48 gold medalists in the last 22nd Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam will also be given special citations by the 80-member PSA, acknowledged as the oldest media organization in the country.
Other individuals, sports associations and corporations who did their share in making the year about to end a big, memorable one for local sports will also be cited, according to PSA President Roberto Cuevas, Sports Editor of the Manila Standard.