I first met Kenneth Garcia in Baguio City fifteen years ago, at the first Sports Summit, an event which sparkled with hope but, thanks to the blatant disconnect between succeeding political regimes, is now a dusty "what if" in Philippine sports history. I was head of the NCR delegation, and Kenneth, a gangly new broadcaster with a face always poise on the edge of a smile, was working for my kumpare, motoring journalist Ron de los Reyes.
After a few years, our membership in SCOOP (the "other" group of sports Media practitioners) brought us together, and we started looking for ways to work together, sharing our sharply opinionated views on basketball, Philippine sports, and so on. Ken had become an integral part of DZSR Sports Radio, and had been tossed around the country to cover an impossibly broad range of events.
You wouldn’t find anything extraordinary about Ken, except for the fact that he leans towards you when you’re talking, a result of a childhood problem that developed into partial deafness in one ear. That is, until you mention Michael Jordan.
"He is the ultimate basketball player for me," the radio anchorman would say to anyone willing to listen. "I don’t care what anyone says, he will always be the greatest."
You see, His Airness was Kenneth Garcia’s idol, in the biblical sense. He was a raving lunatic fan. In a few years’ time, the young broadcaster had collected hundreds of Michael Jordan posters, all his Air Jordan shoes, and every product he had ever endorsed, even the underwear, cologne, cigar, jerseys, jackets, basketballs, books, movie merchandise, Wheaties box, and other stuff associated with the legendary Chicago Bulls guard. Kenneth even has a menu from Jordan’s defunct restaurant in the Windy City. I recall the horror on his face when he would recount how floodwaters had turned the huge open canals of Roxas District into a raging river, and how the waters had unstoppably climbed into his house, and how he spent hours helplessly holding most of his precious mementos over his head (on the second floor of their house, no less), as the murky rainwater swirled around his waist.
To top it all off, he had all of Jordan’s career highlights tattooed– yes, indelibly printed–on his shoulder. In full color. It took his father and younger brother (both tattoo artists) three weeks to turn him into a canvas. There was the young Michael hitting the game-winning jumper in North Carolina’s NCAA title run; the Jumpman logo, Jordan embracing the NBA championship trophy, and so on. It was definitely a first.
"It was a little painful, and sometime boring, but it was worth it," he exclaims. "If ever I meet Jordan on the street, I have something to show him. Nobody else can do that."
In the year 2000, I was asked to put together and run the first all-Filipino Sports site on the Internet, www.philsports.net. It is now a lifeless hulk floating in the Sargasso Sea of cyberspace, but was then another dream job.
It was a blast, uploading sports news everyday, and cranking out features on the great accomplishments of our finest athletes. Ken and I were together six nights a week with our buddy, Atty. Ed Tolentino, and having a great time.
That year, I learned some of Ken’s backstory. After his mother died in the late 1980’s, his father wished to migrate to the US, where all of Ken’s uncles and aunts were. Eventually, his father got his wish, and petitioned for his five sons. Unfortunately for Kenneth, he had turned 18 by the time the petition came through. His family had to leave before Christmas, too, because his brother was going to turn 18.
Ken spent the next nine years alone, while his father and siblings carved out a new life in the US. In 1998, his brothers had chipped in to get him a US and European tour, since they had missed him so. He was so excited. Aside from a short sports broadcasting seminar in Thailand, Ken had never left the country. Then his US visa application was denied.
Enter the NBA.
The league held its first NBA 2Ball contest in the Philippines, and we were the only country with a media division. First prize was a trip to the US, and seats to the opening home game of the Los Angeles Lakers of Phil Jackson. A light bulb went off in my head.
We practiced, and felt we were ready. In the opening round, we faced off against some newspaper reporters, and scored decently enough to get a bye into the semifinal round. I took all the shots from the outside, Ken was the inside man. We made the finals.
Because of a bombing incident at a mall in Makati, the final was moved to Makati coliseum, at halftime of a PBL weekend game. Each team had two rounds, with the best score winning. After a nervous first round, we smoked our opponents in the second, and won. Kenneth was going to America.
The trip itself was four days, with a tour of Universal Studios and Hollywood Boulevard tossed in. Ken stayed weeks, relishing the reunion. Two years later, married and with a child on the way, he earned the right to become an American citizen.
It hasn’t been easy for Kenneth, being away from Carol and Nathaniel Jordan. And his work, the graveyard shift at a convenience store in freezing Virginia, is grueling.
Even Michael Jordan, perched on Ken’s shoulder, has gained weight (Garcia jokes that it’s because he’s retired). He even dreams of joining the US Armed Forces to earn a government pension someday. It will be anything but easy, but he knows it’s for the future of his family.