james.soriano

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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 10 December 2008 Issue (Page G-3)

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Although I honestly expected (and wanted) The Golden Boy to win in his bout with Manny Pacquiao, I was as proud as anyone else to be a Filipino when Pacman handed him a decisive beating in eight rounds.

To find myself feeling this way was quite strange, to say the least. After all, I’ve been a ‘Pacquiao hater’ since he ceased becoming an underdog, and I honestly believe that people just put him on too high a pedestal. While he deserves recognition for what he does, I certainly do not believe that he is an adequate role model, much more worthy of the label ‘national hero’.

But during those moments of elation, I was very much able to put aside all of that. How couldn’t I? He had just dominated one of the ring’s most indomitable figures; what he had accomplished was the stuff of boxing legend. He had made history, and no matter which way I looked at it, I thought that was something our nation can truly be proud of. It was a large dose of inspiration, something that perhaps everyone needed in these times of desperation. I know I certainly did.

That’s what Manny Pacquiao is: a gigantic and addictive dose of inspiration. His life story in itself is inspirational. He was the poor peasant boy, the ultimate underdog who would beat all the odds, and upon whom Fortune would eventually smile upon. His represents the happily-ever-after of Juan de la Cruz’s story. In other words, he gives hope. He unifies us in our identity as Filipinos. It is in this way, I guess, that he is deserving of praise.

But while much has been said about the man of the hour, I feel that not enough has been said about the man who was behind his greatness.

That is why I want to talk about Freddie Roach, his trainer.

Freddie Roach comes from a rather mundane background. His career as a professional boxer was relatively unremarkable, save for the fact that he was on the losing end of most of his high-profile bouts. His fighting style was focused on being durable enough to outlast his opponents, and this eventually took a toll on his body. Due to the injuries he sustained throughout his boxing career, he currently suffers from Parkinson’s disease.

After he retired, he opened up his own boxing club in Los Angeles and became a full-time trainer. As Fate would have it, this is where he would eventually gain some measure of fame. He was thrice voted as Trainer of the Year, and among boxers he is one of the most popular trainers around. He has worked with figures such as Mike Tyson, Bernard Hopkins, and even Oscar de la Hoya himself, but on no other boxer has he had a more profound impact than on Manny Pacquiao.

This impact exceeds his influence on Pacman as a fighter. To Manny, Roach is more than just a mentor in boxing. “He is a friend, almost a father figure, and I listen to Freddie, whatever he tells me. He teaches me not just about boxing but about life. I am fortunate to have Freddie Roach in my life,” he stated in an article on ESPN.com published three days prior to his fight. It is worth mentioning here that Pacquiao did not have a father figure growing up.

It is perhaps a flaw of humanity that we never pay enough attention to the people behind the scenes, our eyes simply too focused on the man in the spotlight. For I believe it is doing this kind of good that is just as worthy, if not more so, of being written about and remembered. Freddie Roach is no hero, but he certainly deserves more credit for being the influence that he was to Manny Pacquiao, both as a fighter and as a person. And I think his story is something we can all draw inspiration from as well.

Nobody ever makes it entirely alone. Hercules would not have been Hercules if he didn’t have Phil. Even legends had their mentors.

To be that kind of a mentor; I think that is truly the stuff of legend.

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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 24 September 2008 Issue (Page E-3)

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Last Sunday, while everyone was out watching the Ateneo-La Salle game in Araneta, I was over at a blockmate’s house with a couple of friends doing some academic work. This, however, did not change the fact that by four in the afternoon, all of us were seated around the big-screen TV, watching the game intently, sharing its highs and lows with all the other fans in the Big Dome. We had ceased being productive.

The game was a bit of a mess. The game was excruciatingly slow in the first half, and there were too many fouls and turnovers throughout. About the only thing that was amazing in this game was the defense, and even if you’re a fan of the sport, this is usually quite hard to appreciate.

But the game wasn’t completely devoid of good points. One of these good points was Ateneo’s 6”7 center Rabeh Al-Hussaini, who had 31 of Ateneo’s 69 points to go along with 9 rebounds. The MVP candidate’s play showed why Ateneo has been on top all season.

During the post-game analysis, my blockmates and I were talking about him in particular. “Ano bang height niyan?” one of them asked. “six-foot-seven,” another of my blockmates answered. “Mga kasing-height ni Michael Jordan.”

That remark, I think, illustrates why the Philippines and basketball don’t fit each other very well.

In our country, basketball is something of a national fixation. We play it on the streets, buy the jerseys, and have an entire channel dedicated to it on cable. This obsession tends to be both utilized and fueled by media. For example, basketball players are treated as celebrities, performing various other functions ranging from TV host to commercial model. When you think about it, these people aren’t just selling products or TV shows. In effect, they are also selling basketball, being “ambassadors of the game”. Maybe this is why every teenage boy, at some point in his life, must have wanted to be a basketball superstar.

While I myself also subscribe to the basketball culture, I don’t understand how things came to be this way, or indeed, why they should be.

For one thing, we put in so much money and effort into basketball when it’s something we can’t be competitive at internationally. Height, of course, is the big issue here. In other countries, the height range for big men would be around six-foot-ten to over seven feet. For smaller players like guards, the average height would be at around six-foot-four to six-foot-seven. Here, Rabeh Al-Hussaini, who stands six-foot-seven inches tall, is already a big man. Our big men are about as big as the small guards of other countries.

For another thing, we pay so much attention to basketball that we’ve come to ignore other sports. In this country, there’s not much room for a career in a sport that’s not basketball, aside from billiards, boxing, and bowling. Besides being unfair to all our talented and dedicated swimmers, martial artists, and other “–ball” players, it also makes you wonder if we have a strange, irrational preference for sports starting with the letter ‘B’.

That aside, I think the worse effect is that some of the sports we’re ignoring, we can actually be competitive at internationally, if we aren’t already. It seems to me that we pay much more attention to how our basketball teams fare in the UAAP than we do about our Olympic bets in taekwondo or archery. While it might be true that we’d give them support when they finally win, let’s face it: any endeavor that aims to win at international sporting leagues requires state support, in terms of both of funding and fan base. Basketball has a lot of this, while our other sports don’t appear to have much, if at all.

Perhaps the funniest thing about all of what I’ve mentioned above is that these aren’t things we haven’t heard before. Despite this, though, we continue to hold on to basketball as our national sport, for better or worse.

But I guess you could also look at it this way: if a sport is just as much about enjoyment as it is about competition, then the fact that we enjoy basketball is what matters.

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PUBLISHED: Student & Campus Section, Manila Bulletin, 10 July 2008 Issue (page G-4)

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The 71st season of the UAAP kicked off last weekend with a match-up between the Montagues and Capulets of Philippine collegiate basketball: the Ateneo Blue Eagles and the De La Salle Green Archers.

While the game attracted the most hype, I thought it was a horrible slugfest characterized by missed shots and bad execution. Then again, I guess I could put a positive spin to it and use words like “epic” and “dramatic” to describe what transpired. After all, the teams were neck-to-neck until the final minute, and both sides gave outstanding efforts. In the end, however, the Blue Eagles won it with free throws and a key defensive play.

But it is not so much the result that I want to make a point about.

Rather, I want to talk about the spirit that animated everyone, from players to courtside spectators to spectators on couches. Ateneo-La Salle basketball games are always big events, whose tickets run out as soon as they start selling, and whose courtside seats are well-attended by the who’s-who in society.

Also, the games themselves seem to bring out something special in everyone. Fans of the same school cheer together when momentum is on their side, and get down on their knees to pray when it’s not. People, young and old alike, get on their feet when big plays are made. As one community, you feel either the exultation of victory, or the anguish of defeat. This is when I realize that it is here where the rivalry is at its best: when people come together to celebrate the spirit of competition.

And then, people go too far.

Any good rivalry has an element of respect. Ideally, after a spirited bout, both teams congratulate each other in the spirit of sportsmanship, and all traces of ill will are left on the court. It is, after all, nothing more than a sports rivalry.

Now I’m not saying that these institutions don’t have any respect for each other. Not everyone is a hooligan, and I’m sure that most people who come from either school have their share of friends, relatives, or business partners on the opposite side of the fence.

But I am saying that sometimes it gets a little out of hand.

We claim that the other side won because they paid the referees. We sour grape when one university ranks higher than the other. We reinforce stereotypes we have of people who come from the opposing school, so much so that it’s almost racism. There are instances in which we would prefer that our companies do not hire, or that our kids do not associate with, people coming from the other side. And it is here that I begin to ask myself: all this, for a sports rivalry?

Then again, this seems to be the way the world turns, anyway. The tendency is to discriminate on basis of irrelevant things like sex, skin color, or affiliation. And therefore, it really isn’t so strange that we do the same thing with athletic competition.

But when you think about it, it is precisely our history of making big deals out of differences that has turned our world into the way it is now. Racism still exists because we hold pre-conceived notions of other races. Religious intolerance still propagates because we like to emphasize that we’re on different paths, not that we’re on the same mountain. And the list goes on.

Which leads me to question, why did we have to complicate our lives this way?

Granted, any rivalry has its good and bad sides. And I guess it is a testament to people’s sanity that this one has remained in relatively the same place. But at the same time, some wounds still run deep. What I’m not so sure of is whether there is any real reason why this should still be the case. And it is then that I wonder at the capacity of people to make mountains out of molehills.

But that is not to take anything away from the fact that at its essence (meaning on the court), the Ateneo-La Salle rivalry is still something we can all look forward to and enjoy.