FORMER FIBA PRESIDENT PUYAT DEAD AT 79
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Mon, 07 Jan 2013
MANILA (PNA) - Former two-time International Basketball Federation President Gonzalo ??Lito? Puyat II died after complaining of asthma early yesterday morning. In his term as president, the proposal was made to open basketball competitions to professional players.
Puyat, a scion of rich and powerful Puyat and Gil families in Manila, who was elected as FIBA top honcho in 1976 during the Montreal Olympic Games and was re-elected in 1984, had just turned 79 last May 21.
He was, up to the present time the first and only Filipino and Asian for that matter to have been voted upon as head of world basketball?s governing body.
It was during Puyat?s second term as FIBA president when serious efforts make basketball open to both amateur and professional players in all regional and international competitions. Puyat, then FIBA honorary president, along with long-time secretary general Boris Stankovic, that the door for the pros to see action in all FIBA-sanctioned tournaments was finally given a go by the FIBA Central Board in 1989.
The FIBA approval of the proposal paved the way for the birth of the first U.S. ?Dream Team? made up of, among others, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Charles Barkley to see action in the 1992 Olympic Games.
Puyat also earned the distinction as the longest-serving president of the now-defunct Basketball Association of the Philippines which he served from 1969 to 1995. Puyat was responsible for the Philippine?s hosting of the 1978 world championship considered as the most successful ever.
Arrangements for viewing and interment will be announced later.
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