This has become a weekend habit.
Filipinos love basketball. That's a given. But collegiate basketball? There is a special place in Pinoys hearts for that.
This snapshot of a Sunday afternoon hoops tiff crowd at the fabled Araneta Coliseum is evidence of the love Pinoys have for amateur basketball. No big money contracts here. All heart. I'd like to still believe that it is still mostly about passion rather than anything else.
Sports columnist Rick Olivares recently did a feature on past and present members of college basketball's mainstay squads. The feature on Ateneo De Manila University focused on a pair of wingmen- Von Pessumal, a wiry Forward who does Reggie Miller impressions better than most, and Wesley Gonzales, a bad boy swingman who this writer remembers best for his block on La Sallean Mac Cardona's hook shot in the 2002 UAAP Finals. Let's not forget his taunt once Cardona fell to the floor. That was classic material.
Wesley unabashedly advised Von to "enjoy his college career". It's when you're a college baller that things are mostly about pride, and when the name of the game is fighting for the name of your school, and not peddling some cola, beer, or paint brand with your jersey. We all know that Pinoys have been plagued with ill fortune many times in history, and that it has taken heart- tons of it- along with an unrelenting will to win, to overcome the odds. It only follows, then, that a lot of Filipinos still choose to go the "passion" route as opposed to go for the money.
If only politicians could fully grasp this concept, then we'd be better off. That is another story for another time, though.
MC
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