FIBA-Asia History and Sidelights
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 03 Aug 2013
MANILA (PNA) --The on-going 27th edition of the FIBA Asia is actually in celebration of the 53rd year founding of the then Asian Basketball Confederation.
The now FIBA Asia, no doubt stands today as one of the most robust international sports organizations this part of the world although only a few, probably, know that the Philippines and its leaders in sports have contributed a lot in its formation and its growth in both size and stature as a zone commission of the International Basketball Federation in the region.
Members of FIBA Asia, in fact, owe it to Chito Calvo, a former football player who would later coach the Philippine team that finished fifth in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the highest so far by any Asian country in the quadrennial conclave, and in the 1954 Asian Games national squad, who is acknowledged as to have brain child the formation of the association.
Calvo worked with then Basketball Association of the Philippines and Philippine president ad senator-to-be Ambrosio Padilla in laying the ground works for having the ABC organized.
Before the formation of the ABC, Asian countries had already been conducting basketball tournaments as one of the events in the Asian ?Olympics? version of international competitions called the Far Eastern Games held every two years among athletes from China, Japan and the Philippines from 1913 to 1934.
Upon the death of the FE Games, post-war basketball competitions were held under the auspices of the Asian Games Federation, which was organized in 1951 with the staging of the First Asiad in New Delhi.
Before the First Asiad though, basketball was an optional sport along with tennis, baseball, hockey, volleyball, football, boxing, wrestling and weightlifting. This situation prevailed until the Second Congress of the AGF IN Helsinki, Finland in 1952.
It was for this reason that Calvo, in a meeting among representatives from the different delegations competing in the Third Asiad in Tokyo in 1958, proposed the formation a basketball federation as a means of promoting and developing the sport in he region.
The concept received favorable reaction from representatives of other countries, among them Yushimi Ueda of Japan, Niu Ping-Yih of the now Cbhuinese Taipoei, Paul J. C. Hyen of Korea and Charlie Sien of Singapore.
With the guidance of then FIBA Secretary general Dr. R. Williams Jones, a simple article of agreement was drafted marking the birth of the ABC.
It was also then that it was agreed upon that the First ABC Congress and championship was awarded to Manila where a committee was formed to draft its constitution and by-laws.
Padilla headed the committee on by-laws with Calvo and Leonardo ?Skip? Guinto, also of the Philippines, as members. The preliminary draft of the ABC constitution was presented in the Second Congress in Taipei where the second championship was also held in 1963.
Upon its approval, the ABC Charter was submitted to FIBA, which gave its recognition as its zone commission for Asia.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea.
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