The Evils of Basketball: UAAP Imports Getting More Opportunities and Stealing Recruits

While going through the pages of the latest issue of The Varsitarian, UST's official newspaper, I was able to read such an enlightening article about basketball as a way of life and how it becomes too influential to us Filipinos.

Here's the article from The Varsitarian.net I hope you'll enjoy this article written by Cliff Harvey C. Venzon:



ARE FILIPINOS nuts for being crazy about basketball?
From being a mere Physical Education alternative for girls in the 1930s, basketball has evolved into national pastime, a staple of Philippine life.
Sports critics and aficionados define sports in this part of the world in three B’s: basketball, boxing and billiards. But basketball, through the years, has remained everybody’s darling.
As the rest of the world frenzied over the FIFA World Cup recently, Filipinos rather enjoyed watching Kobe Bryant or James Yap.This passion has gone beyond the courts, penetrating almost all aspects of Philippine life. There is, of course, the case of one-time senator Robert Jaworski, local basketball’s living legend who swears he never officially retired from the game.
The idiosyncrasies of Pinoy basketball—the love story of a small Southeast Asian nation whose average male height is 5’5” with a big man’s game—is captured in sports journalist Rafe Bartholomew’s new book, “Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball.”
A Fulbright scholar, he traveled for three years from Metro Manila’s concrete jungle to the most obscure corners of the archipelago, finding a singular treasure that was basketball. He was witness to both the PBA big league and “inter-tsinelas” barangay tournaments, whose players, one way or another, developed their unique game with a makeshift goal made from twisted metal attached to a piece of plywood. Welcome to Philippine basketball, indeed.
Closer to home, Thomasians are similarly caught in basketball fever, especially with the ongoing UAAP games. The UAAP forms the other half of the country’s colorful collegiate basketball history with the NCAA, dating back to the American period. The Americans taught us the game and we learned quickly.
Collegiate basketball has since become a social event of sorts, drawing not only students by virtue of school pride, but also the Who’s Who in Philippine society. Take the case of the much-ballyhooed rivalry between Ateneo and La Salle, “schools for the elite with wealthy benefactors,” writes Bartholomew. Games are often played at the Araneta Coliseum to accommodate the sea of politicians, CEOs, and celebrities showing up for their respective schools.
So crazy some schools are about winning that recruitment has, in some cases, bordered on piracy. The Tigers, for instance, lost ex-Cub Kyle Neypes to the NU Bulldogs.
In his book, Bartholomew draws attention to what has become too obvious to Filipinos that we often fail to notice it anymore. Basketball, too, reflects the flaws and ironies in our society. He saw well-paved basketball courts replete with fiberglass boards while busted water pipes and cracked roads nearby were badly in need of maintenance work. In short, we have money for the round ball but none for basic services.
Other disciplines, in which Filipinos—given their height deficiency—could probably excel more, have taken a backseat to basketball. At the UAAP, for example, a school could win the general title, but nothing beats winning the basketball crown.
This reality is probably the reason that school officials and alumni invest heavily on a basketball program while inadvertently neglecting other equally important varsity squads.
Basketball Hall of Famer Carlos Loyzaga himself once complained about the immense attention given to basketball, both in terms of media coverage and funding.
Former PCSO general manager Fernando Carrasco, a die-hard hoops fan, once noted that the country’s basketball program received some P70 million while only a third of it went to the entire Southeast Asian Games delegation.
Basketball is here to stay. But as we continue to nurture our passion for the game and reclaim regional supremacy, it is high time that we develop other facets of Philippine sports as well. Games like football, boxing, and billiards are not about height and can very well get the best out of the Filipino athlete’s natural gifts