GILAS-PILIPINAS AND THE SPIRIT OF 1986
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 18 Aug 2013
MANILA (PNA) --When the Philippines returns to the World Basketball Championship scene next year in Spain, coach Chot Reyes and his Gilas Pilipinas dirty dozen will be fulfilling a commitment their predecessor failed to honor in 1986, also in that Southwestern European country.
hat 1986 squad, funded by then Ambassador Danding Cojuangco?s Northern Consolidated Cement won that year?s Asian Basketball Confederation (now FIBA Asia) championship (1985 actually, following the biennial conclave?s every-two-year rotation) to earn the right to represent the region in the worlds Spain was hosting for the first time.
Uncertain conditions prevailing in the country brought about by the peaceful EDSA Revolution caused the dismantling of the Nationals and aborted their trip to that nation that, incidentally, ruled this country for more than 300 years.
That team, coached by American basketball guru Ron Jacobs, was made up of young talents culled from years of playing together as Hector Calma, Allan Caidic, Samboy Lim, Tonichi Yturri, Elmer Reyes, Yves Dignadice, Franz Pumaren, Pido Jarencio, Jerry Codinera, Alfie Almario and naturalized players Jeff Moore and Dennis Still.
Like the other Philippine ABC champion teams of 1960, 1967 and 1973, the 1986 Nationals won all their games, including a 76-72 shellacking of South Korea in the gold medal finale.
The Filipinos also crowned themselves ABC titlists in 1963, but only after bowing to the Koreans, 59-62, in the preliminary round.
Barring any unforeseen events in the magnitude of the EDSA Revolt, Reyes and his boys are definitely proceeding to Spain this time and, once more, for the first time since the Filipinos saw action in the quadrennial meet 35 years ago in 1978 when Manila played host to the event.
?Yes, Gilas Pilipinas is going to Spain to honor the commitment put on our shoulders by our neighbors in winning the silver medal in the recent FIBA Asia Championship,? SBP executive director Sonny Barrios assured during Friday?s SCOOP Sa Kamayan session at the Kamayan Restaurant-Padre Faura.
Reyes might have failed wining the 2013 FIBA Asia diadem like coaches Arturo Rius in 1960, Felicisimo Fajardo in 1963, Carlos Loyzaga in 1967, Tito Eduque in 1963 and Jacobs, but he earned the distinct honor of becoming only the sixth Filipino bench tacticians to call the shots in a world championship.
The trip to Spain gives the former Talk ?N Text mentor in the PBA the honor of joining Herr Silva of the famed 1954 squad that finished third in that year?s world tilt held in Rio de Janeiro, the highest by far by any Asian country, legendary maestro Virgilio ?Baby Dalupan in 1959 in Antofagasta and Valparaiso in Chile (8th), Eduque in 1974 in San Juan Puerto Rico (13th) and Nick Jorge in 1978 in Manila (8th).
The temperamental bench general, likewise, joins the elite list of Filipino basketball minds that, in one time or another, handled the PH teams in another world stage as the Olympic Games also called ?Greatest Sports Show on Earth.
Top on this list Dionisio ?Chito Calvo in the 1936 Berlin Games where he guided the Nationals baptized ?The Islanders? to a fifth place finish, the highest by another Asian country in the quadrennial meet.
Calvo, acknowledged as the father of the ABC, was also the coach of the 1948 London Olympics team that ended up 12th.
Other Filipino Olympian coaches are Fajardo in 1952 in Helsinki (12th place), Leo Prieto in 1956 in Melbourne (7th ), Rius in 1960 in Rome (11th), Eduque in 1964 pre-Olympic qualifying in Yokohama, Loyzaga in 1968 in Mexico (13th) and Ignacio ?Ning? Ramos in 1972 in Munich (13th).
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea.
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