Saturday, July 20, 2019

Coaching and Officiating: There Lies The Big Difference



As I write this blog entry, five basketball coaches from our province are attending the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas Coaches’ Summit at the Meralco Fitness Center in Ortigas, Pasig. They will be there until tomorrow.

Looking back, Philippine basketball legend Caloy Loyzaga's career also took an extra recognition when he coached the Philippine Team called The Dirty Dozen, to regain the ABC (Now called FIBA Asia) title in 1967 from South Korea. Loyzaga, the greatest Filipino cager the world has ever known was born in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, in August of 1930. This is a trivia to our province-mates who think that anything beyond Barangay Ginebra and the NBA are not basketball!

But sad to imagine, aside from him and Nelson Asyatono, who was born actually in Oriental Mindoro but raised in Mamburao and the PBA's The Bull, there are no other Occidental Mindoro-born basketeer that ever hit the big time, so to speak, and followed the footsteps of the late Carlos “The Big Difference” Loyzaga. But wait, there is a another San Jose-born hoopster now playing for the Bicol Volcanoes in the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) named Chris Lalata. The young ring slammer now gaining recognition in MPBL via what I call his “rooster dunks” for he flies like one.

Occidental Mindoro basketball coaches, John Harold Gabriel of Santa Cruz, Joel Rivera of San Jose, Lexer Samson of Rizal and Rodel Benedicto and Jhyson Daingdingan of Sablayan joined the rest of the coach-participants from all over the country and some Asian countries for the event. Also among the attendees are UAAP coaches including coaches from Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand.

The pool of speakers consists of Damian James Cooter and Dean Vickerman of Autralia, Gilas-Pilipinas coach Joseller “Yeng” Guiao and the SBP Coaches’ Summit Director Joseph “Jong” Oichico, among others. Jokingly, Cooter called the event as the “Filipino-Australian Friendship Days” in allusion to the brawl occurred between players of the Philippine and Australian men's national basketball teams during a match held on 2 July 2018 at the Philippine Arena. The match was part of the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup Asian qualification process.

According to Coach Jhyson, “Basketball truly evolves and never ends.” He added that they are hoping that the coaches of our province would participate and learn in such skills development both in gaining strategies in offense and defense. “We look forward for the SBP to help us develop our officials or referees. Good coaching and good officiating breed good basketball players,” concluded Daigdingan, coach of the MIMAROPA Men’s Basketball Team in the Davao Palarong Pambansa…

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(Photo: Jhyson Daingdingan Facebook Account)



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