Good choice

By Jesus A. Garcia Jr.

ON Thursday, September 25, SBP executive director Noli Eala announced that most likely to be appointed as the new head coach of our national basketball squad will be the Serbian Rajko Toroman.

Toroman, the former head coach of the Iran nationals arrived here last Saturday on the SBP’s invite to watch the UAAP and NCAA finals and observe the practice games of PBA teams. He was the coach when Iran beat Philippines, 75-69, at the FIBA-Asia Championships in Tokushima, Japan last year that Iran won, catapulting them to the Beijing Olympic Games. Philippines settled for ninth place.

The Eala’s premise irked a lot of Filipino basketball lovers, including this writer and my dos cumpadres, well-known Pangasinan coach Angel Gumarang and popular sports columnist Recah Trinidad and his son Chino, the PBL commissioner, as well as Alaminos City Vice Mayor Teofilo Humilde, Jr.

We agreed only a Filipino must steer our nationals. Because kung halimbawang foreigner ang kukunin nila ay para na rin nilang sinabi na bobo at incompetent ang mga well-known coaches natin na nag-aral pa ng coaching schools sa US at Australia. That’s slap in their faces and for us, Filipinos.

Fortunately, our national papers reported the following day that PBA commissioner Sonny Barrios, backed up by Chito Narvasa, president of the Basketball Coaches Association of the Philippines (BCAP), eventually did not support Eala’s idea and instead gave the prestigious and daunting task to Guiao, the current head coach of PBA’s Red Bull,

Guiao not only won over Toroman but also over other aspirants like Chot Reyes, Jong Uichico, Tim Cone and Norman Black.

Guiao, also the vice governor of Pampanga, will be the sixth PBA coach to handle the national quintet. The others before him were former Sen. Robert Jaworski, Black, Cone, Uichico and Reyes.

Barrios, who was given the ‘final say’ in selection the head coach, made the right choice. A Filipino, not a foreigner.

I doff my hat to him.

* * *

The row between our national basketball leaders, BAP and SBP, lingers on.

This involves the same old issue – who is the legitimate group to govern the national association. And because of this power struggle, our national team has been suspended from participating in any international competition sanctioned by the world governing body FIBA, including the one in 2005 when we were the host country.

The SBP, led by Manny Pangilinan, won the first round after being recognized by FIBA in 2006, but lost the following round when one of the RTCs in Metro Manila sided with BAP, headed by former lawmaker Prospero Pichay. The RTC said BAP is the legal basketball body of the country.

SBP was granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) request, enabling it to function again as the official federation.

We, the sports fans and first and foremost our nationals, have been sitting pell-mell over this for too long.

Pataasan ng ego, bickerings and power struggle ang nangyayari, kasi nahaluan na ng politics ang sports natin.

My question is, “When will we ever learn?”

Siguro kapag pumuti na ang uwak, at na hindi mangyayari yon. Amen.

(Readers may reach columnist at biking.jess@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/sports-eye/
For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)

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