“We’ll be back,” vows SMBeermen coach Leo Austria
By Eddie Alinea of The Manila Times
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 01 Jan 2021
Leo Austria.
This is the reputation the San Miguel Beermen have earned in doing battle against all comers in the entire 45-year history of the PBA.
The Beermen, in fact, are likened to the Boston Celtics of the NBA, the team that used to be with the most number of championships in the oldest and most prestigious professional basketball league in the world until the Los Angeles Lakers tied them with 17 in the recent 2020 bubble.
From the time the franchise owned by San Miguel Corporation’s Ramon S. Ang took away with its first plum in 1979, five years after Asia’s first play-for-pay congregation was born, the then Royal Tru-Orange up to this present day, the Beermen have so far crowned themselves champions 27 times.
They romped off with their first All-Filipino diadem in 1989 when SMBeer, then coached by Norman Black and now by Meralco, completed a sweep of all three conference played for only the second league Grand Slam, next only to the legendary Crispa Redmanizers who by then had a pair.
The All-Filipino, re-christened Philippine Cup, proved to be the franchise’s bread and butter, winning the prestigious title nine times from there, including five straight since 2014.
That was, too, the most by any team in the country’s play-for-pay history, surpassing Purefoods’ previous record six.
The Beermen had fallen on lean times, though the Philippine Cup plays. They failed in their bid to stay on top for the sixth consecutive year as the best club in the land with an All-Filipino roster when sibling Barangay Ginebra took over the reign in the PBA’s own bubble.
Coach Leo Austria isn’t bothered.
“We’ve been in this situation many times before and San Miguel always rise after falling flat,” Austria told this writer in a telephone interview last week. We have a saying, you can’t win ’em all. Ganyan ang buhay natin sa sports.”
“May kasabihann din na failure is just a reminder from Someone up there na baka medyo nalilihis tayo ng landas na ating dinadaanan,” Austria said rather philosophically.
“I take this failure of ours na paalaala na dapat na tayong mag-isip kung saan tayo nagkamali,” he said adding though that as of this date ”Wala pa kaming napapagusapan ng management kung ano ang susunod naming hakbang.”
“We haven’t met yet. Abala lahat sa holidays. Nanalo ang Ginebra so, party dito, party doon. Early next year na siguro. Next tournament, hopefully is April pa,“ he said.
“But sa team, we already know what we lacked that have to be addressed,” he assessed. “Our biggest problem was the absence of June Mar (Fajardo) that we thought we could easily solve because we were defending the All-Filipino.”
“Besides missing our most lethal weapon, talagang na-realize namin na kulang kami sa tao,” he observed.
The hard core of the Beermen is still Arwind Santos, Alex Cabagnot, Chris Ross, and Marcio Lassiter. The team counted on them for 35-40 minutes a game and surrounded them with a chorus of net-picking young gunners like Mo Tautuaa, Von Passumal and Paul Zamar.
“Pero kapag nilabas ko ang aliman sa core, wala nang kapalit,” he said. “So, that’s what we will be addressing immediately when to resume preparations. What I can promise our fans is, babalik kami!”
The Beermen of today are like the Braves in their old amateur days. They never threw anything away, They keep trunkful of good players like old dance cards.
What would the game be without them their fans would ask—a whole lot less fun. They’re the only team that remain in the nine clubs that shed off their amateur status and turned pro in 1975 for nothing.
You beat anyone in the present PBA 12 team cast and everybody would say, “Who?” You beat the San Miguel Beermen and everybody would say,” Wow!”
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea of The Manila Times.
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