AL S. MENDOZA
A BIG JOKE BUT
NEVER THE GOLD
IN BASKETBALL
YOU win the basketball gold and that should be it – yesterday, today, tomorrow.
What else must we pine for? The football gold, too, you say?
That’s wishful thinking. At this stage, even a football bronze isn’t achievable.
The Azkals have been showing great promise. But for us to say they’re ready for glory, n’yet, please? Too early in the day, I tell you.
It takes years, if not ages, to capture a crown of any shape and size.
It’s in basketball that we are destined to reign – forever it seems – since Caloy Loyzaga shouldered the country past the world’s basketball giants into an astonishing third-place overall in the 1954 World Basketball Championship in Brazil.
We may have lost our basketball supremacy in Asia but, hey, we will never lose in Southeast Asia.
We are the undisputed basketball kingpins in the region and so, from Day One of the SEA Games in Indonesia, we’ve been tagged the team up for coronation at the end of the skirmishes.
The enemy knew it even before the first whistle for the gold clash had sounded.
For, even to them, for us to win should be as normal as night follows day.
See, 14 of the 15 SEA Games editions saw us win the basketball gold.
It became 15 on Sunday, when coach Norman Black steered Sinag Pilipinas to a murderous victory over Thailand in the finals.
It was expected, or sunshine wouldn’t replace cloudy skies at all.
Okay, we placed sixth overall among 10 nations. No big deal.
We couldn’t even land in the Top 3. No big deal, too.
We were even routed for fifth spot by Singapore. No big deal, yet again.
Let me tell you this: the SEA Games is one big joke.
It promotes selfishness and not equality for the simple reason that the host country chooses the events it wants to stage in wild abandon.
Naturally, the host country will always select events it could easily win.
That’s the reason we were overall champions, too, in 2005 when it was our turn to host the SEA Games.
So, stop fretting. We will win overall honors again when we are host once more.
In the meantime, let’s savor our basketball gold.
For now, it’s the only metal that matters.
