After the storm

Driving around the metropolis after typhoon Milenyo has been a surreal experience. The last time I experienced massive and lasting brownouts like this was the summer of 1992, which was also when a power surge set fire to my house a month before my younger son was born. The devastation is terribly grounding, and humbling.

"Pressure is coming home and not knowing where your next meal is coming from. I don’t have any pressure," Shaquille O’Neal once said when asked about being in important games in the NBA. It sort of puts everything into perspective, doesn’t it?

The last few weeks have also been a whirlwind of activity, especially in the world of basketball. Just look at the last couple of weeks, and you’ll see what I mean. Basketball finally has a new governing body in the Philippines, but a strange silence seems to have befallen the officials of the Basketball Association of the Philippines. Is the storm over, or will a new one begin? The sport has taken so many hits lately, it would seem senseless to do anything to rock the boat now. Then again, some BAP officials have been known to turn their backs on people who have helped them in the past, and form alliances with their mortal nemeses, instead. I hope that won’t be the case now.

The San Beda Red Lions, a very young team with a new coach, overcame the odds to win the school its first NCAA seniors title since 1978. None of the players were born at the time San Beda ended its NCAA reign with back-to-back titles. Ateneo de Manila and De La Salle University were even still in the league then. Realistically, the Red Lions were looking at coming together to win it all next year, not this season. But was there pressure on Koy Banal and the team to end the drought of 28 years in season 82? Certainly. Their storm is over.

A more literal storm washed over metropolitan Manila, and postponed the National Basketball Conference games in San Juan this weekend, not to mention Game 2 of the UAAP finals. Ateneo apparently was hit worse, coming out unable to hit an outside shot and appearing disorganized in crucial stretches. After losing starting center Japeth Aguilar and and point guard Ronnie Bughao, the Blue Eagles were buffeted by the winds of controversy. Still, they managed to pull together and make it to the finals first. University of Santo Tomas, meanwhile, with a young and athletic core and a new coach who got off to a rocky start, has managed to create some miracles of its own, coming in under the radar to knock off Adamson University and claim a finals berth. The Growling Tigers are hoping to repeat the miracle of ’96 in season 69.

"Sports is the toy department of human life," Howard Cosell once said. So why aren’t more of us having fun?

One league that’s having fun is the Philippine Advocacy League, which plays every Saturday at the San Andres gym in Manila. A brainchild of marketer extraordinaire Teddy Pereña, overseen by retired PBA guard Fritz Gaston and supported by Burlington, each team in the fledgling tournament represents a different advocacy, ranging from health to the environment, and so on. Their motto is "We play. We care." Great idea.

Another group that has no pressure is the young squad of Koreans of the Benedictine International School, who are taking up a "foreign language" : basketball.  As part of their desire to feel more part of their community, they’ve asked the school to provide them basketball training, and BIS has obliged. They’ve never won a game, and aren’t really any good, but they’re playing for fun, and turning a lot of heads with how hard-working and respectful they are towards other players and tournament officials. In due time, they’ll be talented, as well.

In the next few weeks, we’ll be inundated with more basketball action: the UAAP-NCAA All-Star Game, the Collegiate Champions League, the University Games, the Philippine Basketball League, and many others. It never seems to end. I hope that, somehow, in the mill of all the games, we remember that they are just games, they’re meant to be fun, and they are meant to be a safe environment for us to experience the challenges and, yes, pressure of life.

Nobody remembers runners-up, but I hope that we may show reverence for the transcendence experienced by all the young athletes we see on a regular basis, playing for the sheer joy of getting better and doing what they love. Being quarantined by a storm is no fun.