The inspiring Lakay (part 2)

URDANETA, Pangasinan, Philippines – Once his PBA career started to take off, Danny Ildefonso had a new goal: to get his children into basketball somehow. But he is not the kind of person who would force people into doing things they don’t want to. He had to somehow gently brainwash his offspring to choose basketball, subconsciously.

“It’s the dream of every PBA player to get his children into basketball,” declares Ildefonso, who established the Danny Ildefonso Sports Foundation to help the youth in his part of Pangasinan. “We had to think of a way to get them to choose basketball. But whichever sport they chose, we would support them.”

“Our parents were really smart,” smiles Dave Ildefonso, who now suits up for the Suwon KT Sonicboom in the Korean Basketball League. “They placed little basketball everywhere we could see them growing up. So it was almost natural that my brother and I would choose basketball. The great thing is that it’s like having your own coach 24/7. We could always ask Tatay anything, and he was always ready to give us advice on the right way to do things.”

In time, all of Lakay’s business investments started to pay off. He used the advance on his salary to build a decent basketball court behind the  gas station on his land here. Nowadays, you’ll find the eight-time PBA champion can be found at the covered basketball court that he built here, overseeing he conduct of the NBTC regional qualifiers, training his own teams, and consolidating the sport in this part of northern Luzon. He promised himself that he would give back to the community that he came from. Now, all his investments in land are making that possible. Aside from the court, he has space for ample parking, and is raising funds for a swimming pool and other facilities to aid the deprived kids in discovering sports. He tearfully explains his deep desire to provide the rare opportunities that somehow found him and changed his life 30 years ago.

“I know how hard it is here in the province,” he says. “I want to help the kids in the communities and the public schools because, sorry to say, they don’t get the support. I wouldn’t have any of the things I have now if not for basketball. I hope to make things better for the youth here, by providing them training. Things are getting better. So all of you who left, it’s time to come back to Pangasinan.”

Danny Ildefonso is the great Filipino story. Poor farm boy discovers the bigger world in the big city, is defeated, then comes back stronger. But where the story ends with most rural Filipinos staying in the big city, Lakay has always looked back. He owns large tracts of land in Urdaneta, prefers the soft, warm breeze to the choking smog and stressful life of the city. Like a farmer, he patiently waits for things to bear fruit, seeing the change that he has been part of. He was blessed with talent and size, but even more so with the vision to never forget his roots, and to give back out of gratitude for what he has received. All of his children are into sports, can stand on their own, and value family most of all. If that isn’t inspiring, it would be hard to find something that is.