Yeng Guiao: Underdog

If there is one person who carries the underdog tag proudly, it is Rain or Shine head coach Yeng Guiao. In spite of everything that he has accomplished in basketball, business and politics, he still attacks his work as if he had everything to prove. Day in, day out, Guiao brings a unique ferocity to his work, especially as a basketball coach. His passion overflows despite all the years of success (and frustration) he has seen. In a way, he brings a teeth-baring, survivalist demeanor to the hardcourt, carving his own unique niche in the Philippine basketball.

“I was really frustrated as a basketball player, maybe I really didn’t have much of a talent or I was too small,” Guiao told The STAR. “And the best way I could get involved with the sport was to just keep my involvement as a coach, as part of the coaching staff. I started out as an assistant coach and then later on graduated to being a head coach. That was still the PBL, actually the PABL. So I started out at the RFM franchise, Swift as assistant coach because that’s where I played in the PBL with Joey Concepcion. And then from assistant coach to head coach.”

Guiao was fortunate to have learned the fundamentals of coaching from both the old-school former Olympians and more technologically-advanced coaches. His having straddled those generations has given him a diverse arsenal of tricks and plays to pull from. Along the way, he latched onto having a more physical style for his teams. You know you’re going to have to go through a gauntlet when Guiao is coaching against you. There’s no other way around it. You can’t be soft.

“You know, my philosophy is that you have to mix it up. You have to get physical in a physical sport. I’ve been under a lot of coaches before, Joe Lipa, coach Turo (Valenzona) as an assistant, during my UP days, even coach, later commissioner Jun Bernardino,” the legislator reveals. “And I guess I just combined all the philosophies, all the techniques I learned from all these coaches and put them all together. And it looks like it’s a unique style which became mine. So I read a lot of books. I read John Wooden, I read Phil Jackson, and then they influence you one way or the other. Then it becomes unique to yourself.”

Another Guiao trademark is to build winning teams from almost nothing, in the process turning no-name small college or unknown street players into PBA All-Stars. Ironically, Pampanga is known for its abundance, Kapampangans for their generosity, their culture is one of giving. But creating teams from the ground up with lesser resources has taught Guiao to find ways to win, harder lessons that have served him well both on and off the court, as coach and public servant. For Guiao, it means more to give from your substance than your excesses. It’s almost Biblical.

“The richer teams, you could say that they had more resources under their command. But we’re budget teams, and when you’re like that, you have to find ways to be effective, you know,” he elaborates. “You don’t have the resources you know. You cannot get the best talents, because after a while, those gravitate to where the offers are better. So you have to find a way, which is for me, maybe you have to be a little more rugged, maybe you have to be a little tougher, not just physically, mentally. You have to work a little harder in practice. So that’s the way to make up for that disadvantage, and also, you have to be a little unorthodox, a little unpredictable.”

Guiao has also flown in the face of convention, though it was done very seldom in the PBA’s early days, Guiao made being unpredictable his style. You don’t play the same team all the time, so why should your starting five be the same all the time? His players don’t know if they’re playing five minutes or 45 minutes. For him, this makes them ready to play all the time. It gives them an edge in their game.

“I don’t know if I started it, but when I was coaching, nobody was really playing 12 to 15 people in a game. At the same time, also I didn’t call timeouts that often, and to a lot of people who were really conventional types of coaches or even observers, it looked a little weird and little unorthodox. But it was effective.”

His greatest measure of achieving his goals was his first run with the surprising Red Bull teams he had built, the dynamic, wild, burly teams that changed the status quo, and surprised their richer rivals no end.

“It was really difficult because teams like Purefoods were well-established, San Miguel was well-established, Alaska was well-established under coach Tim Cone, so we knew that we had to work from the bottom up. And we were very lucky because we were allowed to have a direct hire of four or five. Those who came in were Willy Miller, Kerby Ryamundo, Mick Pennisi, Davonn Harp, then we put together Junthy Valenzuela, Lordy Tugade, Jimwell Torion,” Guiao explained to this writer. “They were unknowns when we started, but in a year or so, they became familiar names in the PBA, because I thought it would take us four to five years before we could win a championship, but we won a championship on our second year and we surprised ourselves. And to me, it was a special time. Those were the Red Bull days and they were special days, and those players that I had were special players. We were very lucky. They were not the superstars, because we could not afford the superstar, but they had courage, they had courage in playing. They had the right style for me: they were rugged, they were tough, and they just fought hard. They worked hard in practice, they were very coachable; they liked our system.”

But Guiao acknowledges that his system isn’t for everybody, it will involve yelling, some foul language, the occasional harshness, all in the aim of getting his players to play better and harder. This he explains to every new recruit, every player traded to the team. Off the bat, there should be no misunderstanding. And if the player does not think he will mesh with Guiao’s still, a trade to another team will be immediately arranged. It has to be that way simply because they are working under a different set of standards of measure.

“My way of measuring success was not really how many titles you won, because you’re really at a disadvantage with the strongest teams,” he says. “My measure of success was: did you overachieve for that particular team that you have? And if your team is good for fifth place, but you’re getting to third or second, maybe play in the finals and you’re consistently in the semifinals even if there are other teams that are supposedly stronger, then that’s a measure of success. And I always told my boss, ‘Boss if we have a team, I want value for money.’ What I meant was the one peso of my boss, the one peso of the company, if they want to have the same performance, the other teams will have to spend 10 pesos just to get to equal our performance.  So I was giving our boss that kind of an incentive; just be patient with me because we need to invest in time.”

Guiao calls it a “beautiful challenge” to wake to the underdog tag every morning. He is proud to be the David to everyone else’s Goliath. At times, he is willing even to go against the league itself, when he feels it necessary, as his reported fines of over P1 million will prove. But at the end of it all, Guiao also has a deep sense of gratitude for the sport and the PBA itself, as it has woven itself into the lives of so many of his countrymen.

“You know it’s not just for me, but during the off-season, it’s like something’s lacking in my life. It’s not just basketball. I have to go to practice and compete. I go to the barangays, especially in Pampanga, of my district, and if it’s off-season people keep asking me when is the opening? When is your game? Something is lacking if there is no PBA. It’s part of life it’s part of the everyday routine people go through and even the emotions you go through, the feeling of when your team wins is a great. You eat better, you sleep better. But the feeling when your team loses, your neighbors know when your team lost; this guy’s in a bad mood ‘cause his team lost.  So to me, it’s like eating and sleeping. PBA basketball is like everyday routine for most of us Filipinos.”

After all, every underdog needs an arena to fight in.

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This writer would like to congratulate Celestino and Isabel Lee, owners of Anix’s House of Kare-Kare for the first anniversary of their Scout Borromeo branch, as well as Vanity Club for its second anniversary event entitled “Posh,” featuring DJs Ace Ramos, Radical Richard, Kyrah, Jimmy and18hundred. Both events are supported by our friends of Brew Kettle.