The Cuban Secret Uncovered (Or Why Philippine Sports Sucks)
By Manny Piñol
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 05 Jun 2007
It was the week of Easter in 2005 when I and my bosom friend, Recah Trinidad of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, took a long trip from Los Angeles, California to Havana, Cuba passing through Mexico City.
It was a trip that I had long wanted to make in my desire to discover what makes this small and impoverished Carribean country the world's Number 1 in amateur boxing.
What I saw made me understand the true meaning of focus and determination.
Sports -- not just boxing -- is an important component of a young Cuban's daily school activities. Every afternoon, after the academic sessions are over, Cuban students go to their assigned areas in the sports field and go through a rigorous sports development activity that will prepare them for competition -- not the following year -- but four or five years later.
Those who have potentials in running do a daily ritual of competing with other youngsters in the oval. Those who are inclined towards volleyball, basketball, baseball, wrestling, boxing and other sports disciplines are allowed to indulge in sports activities where they have the potential to excel.
Sports officials and coaches are like doting mothers on these future sports stars. There is none of the fanfare that most of our sports patrons and sponsors require whenever they contribute something to sports development. It is just pure and simple love for sports and the desire to excel that motivate people to work harder.
Recah and I went to a boxing arena in Havana Viejo to see some amateur fights. It was just one of those boxing nights at the Rafael Tejero Gymnasium, a venue that looked more like a cattle resting area than a boxing arena.
But inside were the 'Who's Who?' in Cuban boxing. The President of the Cuban amateur boxing body was there patiently watching every amateur boxer who sees action, perhaps carefully evaluating which of the young kids would make it to the Olympics and other international competitions.
After the boxing matches, the boxing officials themselves started gathering the boxing gears, the corner pads and other equipment. No fuss.
And so what's the Cuban Secret to its success in sports in spite of its financial woes? Well first, Cubans look at sports development as a continuing activity that spans years, not just seasons. That's why they nurture young sports talents.
They stay focused and most of all they have learned how to cope with their financial difficulties. The use of old car tires as a makeshift trampoline for the boxers' leg exercises was started in Cuba. Now, you see these tires in almost all boxing gyms.
To the Cubans, they will do anything to attain excellence in sports.
Everytime I remember my short visit to Havana where I witnessed how dedicated, organized and focused the Cubans are in sports, I realize the enormity of the problems confronting Philippine Sports.
The so-called government sponsored grassroots sports development program initiated by the Department of Education is nothing but a sham. Every year, local schools and government units spend hundreds of millions of pesos for a seasonal sports activity that starts with the Diistrict Meet, the Zone Meet, the Provincial Meet, the Regional Meet and the Palarong Pambansa.
As the sports activities start, young students are taken out of their classes. Those who will participate in swimming are asked to jump into the pool to practice with barely a month to go before the elections. Others are asked to prepare just weeks before the actual competition and made to wear hastily procured ill-fitting shoes and loose uniforms making the kids look more like scarecrows rather than athletes.
Some education officials even go to the extent of telling their young athletes to lie about their age so that high school boys with hair in their legs as thick as the electric wires are made to compete in the elementary category because their victory would bring honors to the division.
The motto seems to be: "Never mind the cheating. The kids will ultimately learn how to cheat anyway. Better start them young." No wonder we have successfully propagated a culture of cheating.
The sad thing about this program is that after all of the victory honors, the youngsters go home to their respective villages to plow the fields again because there is no follow up activity that would develop them into potential national or international competitors.
So, forget about the government-sponsored grassroots sports development program. It sucks!
Look, the only sports activities now where Filipinos can be considered powers to reckon with are in boxing, billiards, basketball, taekwondo, chess and now badminton.
And is there government involvement in the development of these sports disciplines? Hardly!
Talents are coming out of badminton now because building badminton courts is good business now. Taekwondo excels because kids could do it even in the backyard; chess has been there because there are chessboards even in the smalltown plaza; there is a basketball court in almost every village all over the country; billiards once known as an activity of the vagabond has proven to be a real grassroots sports thus producing a lot of international stars; and of course boxing has been with us. Give kids a pair of old gloves, or even several pairs of old sports socks, and you have boxing.
So what should be done to correct the Philippine grassroots sports development program? First, the seasonal sports activities must stop. Second, the Department of Education must give up the District, Zone, Provincial and Regional Meets and allow the local government units, through the youth organization called Sangguniang Kabataan to handle the sports development program.
The conduct of a national sports competition must be given to either the Philippine Olympic Committee or the Philippine Sports Commission through the different National Sports Associations so that talents who will be discovered during the event could be nurtured and trained further.
Philippine sports sucks but it is not hopeless. We have to learn from the secrets of Cuba: focus, determination and most of all a burning desire to excel.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Manny Piñol.
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