August 2013 will go down as the biggest month in the history of our national sport. Helm by full-blooded Filipino Chot Reyes and a phenomenal group of assistants, the single greatest national team ever assembled put on a show at the Mall of Asia Arena that will never be forgotten.
Why have we so nuts about basketball for so long? Basketball has given us 50 years worth of magical moments within our shores. But in an international stage, we haven't really proved anything, yet. I mean why basketball? Haven't we always undeniably been too short, too slow and too un-athletic to compete internationally?
Enter Marcus Douthit. Our very own naturalized Filipino, 6 foot 11, 230 pound-beast bursting with talent. Enter the smartest and slickest backcourt tandem in the continent. A backcourt driven by the mind of Jimmy Alapag and fueled by the skills and speed of Jayson "Castro" William. And what ever we lacked in inherit athleticism, we made up for exactly the way we should always made up for it - with shooters. Lets face it, the 3-point shot was never really a weapon of ours. But now, it is a weapon of mass destruction. Long-range snipers capable of making opponents feel like receiving actual semi-automatic gunfire from the sky and with a rainfall frequency that made monsoon storms in Manila world-famous.
Every major rock band and popstars that came over, from Aerosmith, Maroon 5, Rihanna, Taylor Swift to Lady Gaga. Everyone has said that Manila is one of the best places to perform because we bring the craziness everytime. Why we couldn't have the better homecourt advantage than the Boston Red Sox or George Saint-Pierre in Canada?
Of course, we were. Our Gilas Pilipinas tolled right through the tournament. And the Filipino faithful were there every step of the way. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Japan, Hongkong, Kazakhstan. We made a tidal wave of social media witticisms like Jeff Chan being Allan Caidic back from the grave even if Allan Caidic isn't dead. And that anxious moment where Marcus Douthit went down and I said "Thank God that dude looks like he have a third leg". Sandwiched right in the middle of visits of Lebron James and Kobe Bryant, Gilas Pilipinas upstaged them both with a resounding battlecry that said - this is what witness history is really all about.
Then this happened. I've never seen 20,000 people cry at the same time, except for the time where the San Beda Red Lions ended their 28-year title drought. I've seen our local artist in concert and Lea Salonga in Miss Saigon. Yes, they made people cry. But this? This is different. Fans, celebrities, politicians, and the great Robert Jaworski, all shedding in joy with well-deserved tears. The image of a broken-down coach Chot will forever be etched in my mind. Twenty-thousand people standing and singing the words of "Noypi". A chorus that said "Hoy Pinoy ako, buo aking loob, may agimat ang dugo ko". That South Korea game was the most important game ever. It validated our half-a-century of basketball.
Now, as the most influencial Filipino boxer of all time comes in with two straight defeats, maybe pointing at the end of his spectacular career, a nation of 7,107 islands, built on the heart and resoluteness of 100 million Filipinos passionate about their sport and more passionate about their pride, need not worry that no longer existed of that universally epic enough to cause traffic and more than to temporarily die. Because every two years, at the Fiba Asia Championships, we can look forward to our basketball champions. The champions of our national sport. Maybe not first-place trophy champions but certainly, positively, unquestionably - champions. JMP
No comments:
Post a Comment