Mixers dedicate Game 6 to late coach Ely Capacio
By Eddie Alinea
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 25 Feb 2014
Capacio.
The Rain or Shine Elasto Painters might have lived for another day and delayed San Mig Coffee Mixers' celebration for another All Filipino title with a nail-biting 81-74 victory in Game 5 of the two teams' best-of-seven series for the PBA 39th Season's Philippine Cup championship last Sunday at the Smart-Araneta Coliseum.
RoS head coach Yeng Guiao even said that his Painters will continue delaying the multi-colored balloons dropping from the Big Dome ceiling by marching triumphantly, too, in Game 6, tie the series and bring home the bacon in Game 7 on Friday.
The Pampanga Congressman and his Painters will have a surprise waiting for them in their Wednesday 8 p.m. appointment with the Mixers, also at the Big Dome - coach Tim Cone's boys are dedicating today's matchup to former head coach Ely Capacio, who died last Sunday of abdominal aortic aneurysm while playing golf at the Southwoods Golf Course.
"Yes. We are dedicating the game to coach Ely, who 23 years ago, gave the Purefoods franchise its first of nine All Filipino championships," Alvin Patrimonio, the team captain of that Tender Juicy Hotdogs squad and now San Mig team manager, told this writer during Capacio's wake Monday at the Funeraria Paz inside the Manila Memorial Park along Sucat Road in Paranaque City.
"Coach Ely started what is now considered the Purefoods franchise rich tradition in the PBA's most prestigious tournament, so dapat naman talagang ihandog namin sa kanya ang Game 6 at ipanalo ang korona," Patrimonio declared. "Kukunin na namin ito."
"This may sound an added motivation for the boys, but there's more to it. The most important thing is to let everybody know -- his bereaved family, our fans, the Purefoods family and San Miguel Corp. management that we remember what he had done to the whole organization," Patrimonio said.
Capacio, who would have turned 59 on March 14, steered the TJ Hotdogs, whose lineup also included his younger brother Glen, Nelson Asaytono, Elmer Cabahug, Harmon Codinera, Jerry Codinera, Rodolfo Entrina, Dindo Pumaren, Elmer Reyes, Joel Santamaria and Leoncio Tan Jr., to the franchise's only second title conquest since joining the pro-league in 1987 after legendary Baby Dalupan's crown victory in the Third Conference a year before.
Capacio, whose remains will be laid to rest tomorrow after a 2 p.m. mass actually took over the retiring Dalupan after serving the maestro for several seasons as an understudy, thus winning the plum as a rookie head coach.
That victory also catapulted "The Cap" to his first of four League MVP honors, matching the feat fashioned out earlier by fellow PBA Greats Ramon Fernandez.
Before his death, Capacio was vice president for human resources in the San Miguel Corp., the only player to have conquered the corporate world and attained such high position.
Capacio, also known as "Father" to sports media on the strength of his being a former seminarian, is survived by wife Victoria (nee Guerrero) and children Abegail, Stephanie, Audrey and Timothy.
The fallen former Purefoods head coach finished high school at the Palo (Leyte where he was born) Sacred Heart Seminary then proceeded to enroll as a human resources student at the San Carlos Major Seminary in Mabolo town in Cebu.
The second of four children of a WWII veteran transferred to La Salle in Manila as a third year student. Despite not playing high school and collegiate basketball, he was recruited by the Elizalde family-owned Yco Painters in the then amateur Manila Industrial Commercial Athletic Association, acknowledged as precursor of the now PBA.
Capacio, a member of the 1975 Pesta Sukan champion national team, which also saw action in the the Asian Basketball Confederation tilt the same year, turned pro and played for Tanduay for eight seasons from 1977 to 1985 seeing action for 324 games, averaging 5.9 points per game and 5.5 rebounds.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Eddie Alinea.
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