Rov and Guada

Coaching a basketball team entails much more than just teaching players the fundamentals and tricks of the game. At times you become a parent, a brother and a friend.

The relationship between Tim Duncan and his coach Greg “Pop” Popovich is legendary. Popovich personally went to the American Virgin Islands which Timmy considers home, in order to start things right with the prized rookie. Tim has never considered playing for any other coach or team in his more than a decade of outstanding basketball.

I would suppose that Coach Popovich approach to the other stars in his team is no different.

That is why San Antonio, year after year, is a title contender, and when the stars and planets are well aligned, the Spurs go on to win another NBA Championship.

I guess I was able to develop the same thing with the teams and players that I have coached. I did not mean it to be so, but it is probably just the style of leadership that I naturally follow. I guess I have written previously that most of the players who started with me, stayed on, and went on to become good employees in different companies.

Even those who played for me in the college team for the university intramurals, look back with fondness to our experiences together. We never became champions, but the guys swear we had the better time.

One of my boys came back recently to invite me to become one of the major sponsors in his church wedding.

There are so many reasons why I could not say no to the invitation. The bride is also a friend and a former student.

I remember Guada attending our late night practices. I am not exactly sure who was watching who. What I am very sure is that both of them liked basketball a lot, aside from each other.

Rov was also one who became a compleat player as he progressed from a freshman to a senior, when he was chosen as team captain by his teammates.

There was also the prospect of being able to visit again the town of Isabel, which was very much a part of the things that I used to do: as officer of a mining company, as governor of Toastmaster’s International and as member of the board of trustees of a La Salle school.

The wedding—from the church decoration, to the reception—was well planned. Thanks to the fellow teachers and students of Guada at the Visayas Technological University.

The food at the hotel was surprisingly very good, and I told the owner, who is now my Kumpare, to take care of his chef. The best thing that I enjoyed at the reception was the band that Rov engaged called the Rio Brothers from Tacloban.

When they came out, I was expecting to hear a slew of acid rock, metal rock etc. When they started to play however, their repertoire was purely Bee Gees, Monkees and yes Beatles.

The group of four could not have been out of their teens, and the way they sounded, they must have heard Beatles songs played again and again and again.

True enough, their father is a Beatle fan who assured himself of hearing the Beatle sound by teaching his sons to play musical instruments and play, yes Beatle songs.

The rain, though welcome, disrupted the fun.

The party continued indoors, but I was too tired after the dehydration that I suffered in church during the wedding and the prospect of an early wake-up the next day.

The wedding trip was sweetened by the planned adventure to Kalanggaman Island in Palompon. It was more of finally visiting Palompon that excited me.

I have so many friends and acquaintances who call Palompon their home. Most of them have the bearing and character of the Filipino middle class, so you begin to wonder how much the community where they grew in had to do with the character of the person.

True enough, I could compare Palompon with the gentility of the old Mandaue, before commerce and industry replaced the old town ambience with the rustle and bustle of machines, stationary or moving.

The town knows that Kalanggaman Island is a jewel that they have to attract visitors so they go through the process of keeping it clean, pristine and undisturbed by modernity.

Both the towns of Isabel and Palompon are aiming for cityhood.

I hope that they get it if they are qualified, because they are more deserving than the cities of the single industry, one road cities which are monuments to the inefficacy of the legislature, and are silently whispered as a sign that the judiciary can no longer be portrayed as the blind lady with sword and balance.

The pump boats that ferry people should however clean up their act.

Our group specifically requested for a 2 p.m. return trip from Kalanggaman Island because we had tickets for the 7:15 p.m. ferry in Ormoc. We were fetched at around 4:30 p.m.

We were already resigned to taking the slow boat back to Cebu. Upon landing in Palompon port however, the driver of the van assured us that we had enough time to catch our trip, even with the stop-over at our hotel in Isabel to pick our gear.

Our moving out from the hotel broke the Bin Laden capture record by several minutes.

The inefficiency of the Palompon pump boats was compensated by the efficiency of the fast ferry. We arrived at the terminal at exactly 7:13, and if not for another group of valued passengers who called ahead that they were coming, the door would have been shut in our faces.

After the long and stressful trip back to Ormoc (not because of our driver who is one of the most skillful that I have met) due to the time constraint, we settled into the last few vacant seats of the fast ferry, ready to snooze away the 3hr trip and recover the early wake up call we had earlier in the day.

Well, we were going back to our own dreary lives, while Guada and Rov are about to start one of the most exciting times of their own.

From all of us, good luck and fare thee well.