EASL: building tomorrow

The East Asia Super League is going the extra mile to provide openings for Asian youth to study and play basketball beyond their own shores. From bringing together the strongest professional teams in this part of the world, the EASL Future Champions program launched in Cebu this past weekend will also go to Hong Kong and Macau to find the diamonds in the rough who could become future international basketball greats. Cebu was selected because Metro Manila is already overflowing with basketball. As coaches in the Queen City of the South will attest, the only thing needed to accelerate their basketball growth is the same level of training and exposure made available to youth in the National Capital Region.

“We have a great opportunity to create a Pan-Asian youth development program with Hong Kong, Macau and Cebu at the core in our first year,” explains Henry Kerins, CEO of the EASL. “What it’s all about is getting the best kids with the best attitude and the best work ethic together, putting in NBA coaching talent, technology that’s necessarily available to all these kids, bringing them together for elite training.”

The best 40 kids from yesterday’s tryouts in Cebu will be divided into four teams of 10. The squads will undergo eight weeks of training, playing each other on the weekends. The most gifted group of participants gets to play in a championship game in Hong Kong. The top five from Cebu then go on to a week of training in Japan, and a week of training in Spain with FC Barcelona. All of this is in aid of discovering the best talent in Cebu and other places, and investing in them. The EASL has also included coaching development in their summer camp there.

“My objective is one kid from Cebu gets a scholarship somewhere to play basketball,” says Kerins, who grew up in Asia and has a deep knowledge of hoops in the region. “I started this company with really no background in basketball. I want kids in Cebu to think “I can be a professional player, but I can also learn a lot on the court and off the court for my academic career and my professional career.” Basketball is an incredible avenue for developing yourself as a person, as a teammate, as a professional, as a student, but also giving you opportunities that you might have otherwise not had.”

Those who graduate from EASL Future Champions will have the tools to excel in big schools in the UAAP and NCAA, the national youth program or perhaps in educational institutions overseas. If by some happy happenstance they end up actually playing for a champion team in the EASL in the future, that would be a bonus.

This is an example of corporate social responsibility without an agenda. There are no attachments, no self-serving long-term benefits to the benefactor. The kids from these underserved places in the region will be able to concretely envision their futures in basketball, academics and beyond, a future far beyond what they would have seen on their own. Cebu province has produced a long list of powerful contributors to Philippine basketball: Elmer Cabahug, Dondon Hontiveros, June Mar Fajardo, Calvin Oftana, RR Pogoy, Greg Slaughter, JR Quinahan and others. Can you imagine the boost their youth would get should the next generation break through to international schools and professional teams?

This program by the EASL will set the bar for giving back, and will provide not just one-off open doors, but chances that will return long-term gains to Cebu and the Philippines at large, Hong Kong and Macau, which have been overshadowed for generations. The vision is clear, and has the league’s international muscle behind it. All the kids have to do now is commit and take that first step forward.

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