Although his inclusion in the Philippine team for the FIBA 3x3 World Cup came as a surprise to him, GlobalPort Batang Pier’s Stanley Pringle Jr. has always been ready for whatever comes his way. From a very early age, the 6’1” Fil-Am guard was programmed to become a competitive athlete, and he learned that basketball would be his path to success. He and the game have been very good to one another.
“My earliest memory of basketball? I want to say it was in Massachusetts, or on a military base going to the gym with my father and my uncle. I was probably five years old or four,” Pringle told The STAR. “What attracted me to it? All my uncles played basketball. All my cousins played basketball. My father played basketball in college. My uncle played high school basketball in Toledo (Ohio) with Jim Jackson, who played in the NBA. They were the ones who taught me how to play.”
Pringles parents met in the Philippines in the 1980’s. His father was in the US military before the Philippine Congress decided to expel the bases at the end of 1991. He spent his entire life in the United States. The middle child among five siblings, knew was that basketball was going to at least get him a free education.
“Their goal was to teach me and my cousins to eventually get a scholarship and play,” the Penn State guard explains. “They knew how expensive it was to attend college. You know, we didn’t have a whole lot of money. They were trying to get me to go to college to get a free education, a scholarship.”
It was a circuitous route back to his mother’s homeland. He had heard about the Philippine Basketball Association when he was in college. A teammate of his at Penn State, Jamelle Cornley, played as an import for Rain or Shine in 2012. That same year, Pringle was an import for the Indonesia Warriors in the ASEAN Basketball League. A road game in Metro Manila was the first time he had ever set foot back in the Philippines.
“Coming from America, it’s really expensive to buy a plane ticket. A lot of people aren’t fortunate enough to buy a ticket,” Pringle says.
When it looked like the Warriors were not going to be able to field a team for the succeeding ABL season, Pringle decided to try his luck in the Philippines. In 2014, he was the top overall pick in the PBA Rookie Draft, and has been with GlobalPort ever since.
Pringle realizes that the FIBA 3x3 World Cup will be a monumental challenge. The top 20 men’s teams and top 20 women’s teams will converge on the Philippine Arena second week of June. As the host, the Philippines qualifies automatically. Though he looks forward to meeting Christian Standhardinger when they start practice, one thing Pringle knows is that the Filipino players will do whatever it takes to win.
“I was surprised. I mean, I didn’t know about any of the rules or anything,” the Virginia native declares. “The fact that they wanted to include me was great. I felt that I could really compete. Definitely, we’re going to do everything we can.”
And with a madly cheering crowd behind them, the Filipinos could definitely pull off some miracles. After all, Pringle and Standhardinger, Troy Rosario and RR Pogoy are programmed to win.