Photo by Joseph Nebrida from Inboundpass

By France Pinzon

Yes, I had just written about the country’s growing love for football weeks ago. But really, what’s not to admire? It says a lot, when you see the entire nation covered with makeshift basketball courts that welcome all sorts of individuals to play anytime of the day, regardless of sportswear. Regardless if they’d rather watch matches on television, than flock to our arenas and pay for their seats. Regardless if they’d endlessly bash our pro-league and declare it as close to its extinction.

Basketball superstar Kobe Bryant’s latest visit to the Philippines last July 13th (courtesy of Nike) only reaffirmed the nation’s love for this sport. As if many had doubted it, thousands of KB24 faithful filled the Araneta Coliseum to see their favorite NBA standout put on a great show.

Indeed, a great show it was. What started out as a friendly competition between Smart Gilas Team Pilipinas and a select set of UAAP players (from schools: ADMU, DLSU and FEU), turned into something else as the Black Mamba requested to add eight more minutes into the original 10, putting on an FEU jersey to join the UAAP All-Stars, who were outplayed by our national men’s basketball team past the ten minutes.

It really didn’t matter much what Kobe actually did on the court that afternoon. It was the very thought of our players, having the opportunity to play with an NBA player of such high caliber—five championship rings, USA Men’s Senior National Team membership, Finals and All-Star MVP honors, and stat records broken to boot. It was the very thought that the thousands, who invaded the coliseum, got to witness such a rare gesture from the 1997 superstar rookie and Slam Dunk Champ.

Earlier that day for charity, Kobe visited a Gawad Kalinga site to shoot some hoops with the SIGA kids. Later after, he faced hundreds of Black Mamba diehards, who’d waited under the scorching sun in front of Nike, The Fort branch, accompanied by three of his Filipino students from his famous US-based basketball clinic. Excuse the cheese factor, but while Kobe vows for some “payback” come the next NBA season, here he’s left the country itching for another Manila comeback, and soon.

Here are some additional photos taken by Denise Mallabo :

UNO recently sat down for an interview with Rafe Bartholomew, author of Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin’ in Flip-Flops and the Philippines’ Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball

Interview by Oliver X.A. Reyes | Also published in UNO October 2010 issue

Rafe Bartholomew, currently an editor of Harper’s Magazine, obtained a Fulbright grant to study the phenomenon of basketball in the Philippines. A one-year study turned into a three-year residence and possibly a lifelong passion for the Philippines.

You mentioned David Halberstam’s  The Breaks of the Game as among the influences of Pacific Rims. When I read Halberstam’s book at 13, it was my first exposure to a lot of aspects about American culture, things like the racial divide. What I gather from Pacific Rims is that, through our basketball culture, you were able to unlock a lot of things about Philippine culture at large. Was this expected? Did you have that expectation when you first arrived in the Philippines?
The simple answer is: no. I don’t know if it’s embarrassing to admit now, but the truth is I don’t think I knew very much about the Philippines before I began living here. I was able to read a little bit of history books; I was able to try and learn a little bit about basketball through the Internet, although back in 2004 and 2005, the Internet wasn’t as rich with Philippine basketball information. Now there are a lot of blogs that do stuff– there’s a little bit more now out there. I feel like starting today would be a little bit easier than if we started back then. When I was just beginning to think about it, I was really going on inspiration and sort-of-almost-like faith, this hunch, that I was able to find in that other book which was Alexander Wolff’s Big Game, Small World. The images that were in that chapter where it just describes as playing in tsinelas, guys sort of caring for their basketball courts, I remember the guy polishing his backboard–that level of passion; what basketball had meant to them, these people Wolff was meeting, for them to do those things. That gave me this hunch that I would find something really special if I got the chance to come out here. But I don’t think I knew enough to really have conceived of exactly how it would all come together, and to really have guessed that basketball would be this way; to really follow it into a total discussion of, like you’re saying, Philippine culture at large.

Was the Fulbright Scholarship Committee skeptical of the project?
I don’t know for sure how skeptical, [but] they never asked me about it. The application process spent a long time revising my essay, my research, and what I intended to look into with the fellowship’s office of Northwestern University where I was a student at that time. So that’s who was skeptical. But they weren’t skeptical; they thought it was a great idea, but they knew it was going to be something of a hard sell because the readers of the application were going to be academic people: political scientists, people who may not care at all about basketball; like they may not care about my field either because journalism is my major. Even though people respect journalists, I think in academia it’s sort of a lesser field; it’s not considered a rigorous academic field. So I had those two things, I guess you can say, working against me, and we definitely made an effort to punch up the sociological side of the research, to give lots of examples of what I could find.
In our initial application we focused on basketball as a unifying force, something that has managed to affect the lives of many Filipinos who were divided by socioeconomic class, geographic region, ethno-linguistic background, religion. I remember that I included what I found in the Wolff chapter about how even when that author was watching TV, and they had a thing on the nightly news about the MILF, the Moro commander was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat. The idea that even boundaries that religion and Catholicism, which has been pretty strong, haven’t been able to cross, but basketball has. That idea was sort of fully emphasized in order to prove myself as a rigorous academic to the Fulbright board.

On basketball as a unifying force in the Philippines I think it’s understandable, the fact that we watch this in games, especially in a PBA game. In a PBA championship, that collective experience does unify us in the sense that we have this shared experience that we can talk about no matter how old we are, no matter the socio-economic divide. Do you think basketball culture itself has affected the Filipino culture? Has it shaped the Filipino culture? You mentioned arriving at NAIA and noticing that nag-gugulangan. Do you feel that basketball ethic has made an impact in other aspects of Filipino culture?
I think there’s an element of that. Basketball is working its way into the nooks and crannies of people’s lives. The things that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see, for example in the airport, or when you think about basketball terms have become things that people always use, like “last two minutes” is iconic. I don’t know if it really shapes Philippine culture, but it definitely makes its impact; it certainly dents it in a few ways overall. The one thing I think is important to mention is that basketball is a unifying force although it does level people out in some important ways. I feel like it’s also important to say that the sport is not some magic cure, panacea that’s going to fix all the problems of the country or the world or whatever. At end of the day, all the people who come together to watch a basketball game all go home to their respective situations, which are probably less equal than I wish they should be.

Before arriving in the Philippines, did you encounter or research on previous writings by non-Filipinos who resided in the Philippines and who wrote about their experiences?
I did. I didn’t read as much personal stuff. I read history books, I read Stanley Karnow’s In Our Image, which is just considered a good history book.

When the 6-hour documentary version came out in ’89, it became required viewing by the Department of Education.
In public schools?

Just the television broadcast was required viewing.
Well I don’t know if it was meant to be force-fed to the people, but it was valuable to me for getting some sort of a background. I’ve read some scholarship, some history books, a lot of which ended up being written or edited by foreigners. I think as I lived here longer, I began to notice something that became a goal of mine to avoid in my writing. When you think about the infamous James Fallows’s “A Damaged Culture” article, even though I think he may point out plenty of valid points, there is what I would think of as a prescriptive tone that is just sort of overly judgmental, as in like sitting on this perch knowing that you hadn’t really earned an opportunity to sit on, and looking down on the country and saying even though I was here for, I don’t know, it doesn’t matter how long a person is here for, however long someone was here, six months, two weeks, the same tone is there. It’s very prescriptive, saying “I know what’s wrong with this place and let me tell you what it is.” It’s very arrogant. I didn’t want that to come out in my writing.
So I did notice some of that, and also I think what I wanted my writing to be was enjoyable and funny at times. I wanted to avoid the idea that I was going to be pulling back the curtain for foreigners on this wacky world, like “look at these crazy people on the other side of the world dancing basketball.” That kind of thing, which, I hate to say it, but I’ve met with editors who were interested in that [kind of] book so that was a big turn off for me. I’m glad I ended up with an editor and a publisher that sort of understood the way I felt about the country and how I wanted to portray it on a page.

My one apprehension when I heard about the book was that it would have that “wacky” tone. I was pleased that it wasn’t that way. You took immense effort to understand, to immerse yourself in the culture and speak of it without any judgmental tone, or maybe even a hint of sarcasm, and I really appreciate that.
If there’s any slant I took, it was really one of celebration. I mean because that’s the way I feel, because I think about, strange analogy I guess, but  I’ve been reading some reviews of the Sebastian Junger book about war where he spent a year living with these American soldiers in Afghanistan– the most violent place in Afghanistan. The book here becomes a little bit about how you couldn’t help but become sort of not only reliant but infatuated with these guys whom he’s living with and who were protecting him. It’s definitely a different situation for me, but there’s something similar there: my time here meant so much, and I loved it so much, and I learned so much that I can’t help but [have] the tone of wanting to celebrate the fun and the poignant aspects of basketball culture, of the Philippine culture in general. That is going to leak out no matter what I do.

How indispensable was your being “embedded” with the Alaska team? I would assume that it would be a much different book if you weren’t “embedded.” Would there even have been a book if that had not happened?
I think there would have been ways to still write a book, but I think, for me, that is the backbone of the book–even though the research that I’m most proud of takes place outside of the Alaska narrative. Some of the stuff about the history of the game, the clips I was able to pull on that demonstrated some of what were to me in unexpected ways, that politics used basketball, and sport wormed its way into different aspects of the culture. I’m really proud of the research I did, but to me without the Alaska narrative, it would have been hard to get into those of discussions. The Alaska basketball story sort of opens the door for all of those things. The books I’ve always liked to read, you know, The Breaks of the Game; it wasn’t just the book that made me interested in basketball, in writing. My wanting to come here was, to some extent, a model for this group because it also uses the season, but then takes that season to discuss all these other issues. And the Alaska season was my narrative backbone. It has its beginning, middle, and end; it has characters. And I think that those people, those players and their lives on and off the court showed me a lot of things, a lot were examples, living and breathing examples, of a lot of cultural themes and issues I wanted to discuss. So it was perfect because I could use an example from Alaska to illustrate something that is really important to the culture.

In doing local media profiles as well insider stories–those which provide wider access of their subject to the journalists–there’s always the expectation that the resulting piece will be flattering or complimentary. Of course you’re arriving from a different media culture in the States. Did you feel that there was any expectation from PBA insiders who granted you access, that they would be treated well?
It’s one of those things that no one ever said directly “Ayusin mo, Rafe. Make it good.” there was never anything like that. I never even felt any indirect form of actual pressure. Although I think culturally, living here for a long time as a foreigner, I didn’t become Filipino, but I did observe values. The amount of time I spent with the team made me conscious of how I would react to it, and so I think that thankfully, even though there are parts where the players and coaches are not in their best moments–they go through their ups and downs, I think the overall portrayal of the individuals, almost all individuals, and certainly Philippine basketball as a whole is something very positive. It’s like everything has its flaws, but this I think is something that I love very dearly, so it wasn’t hard for me to write about it in that sort of tone.

What’s the most interesting reaction to the book that you’ve heard from among the subjects you have covered?
Early this week I had the chance to catch up with Tim Cone a little bit. He was saying he’s really enjoying the book, but he can’t read it himself. Everytime it gets to a point that it becomes devoted to Alaska, he has to switch, to skip ahead, not necessarily because he thinks he comes off poorly, but just because of that whole thing: it’s hard to hear your own voice, it’s hard to see yourself, you always feel like you’re ten times heavier when you’re on the screen and uglier, or your skin looks bad. Likewise, when someone’s writing about you, you’re like, “Oh God, am I really like that?” So he said he’s having that sort of reaction, but eventually he’ll force himself to read it. My experience with him has made me admire him a lot as a coach and as a man, so I think when he gets around to reading it, he’ll have nothing to be upset about.

You identified Tim Cone’s introduction of the triangle offense to the PBA as a significant demarcation line in the history of the PBA–that and the influx of Filipino-American players. Were you able to talk with a lot of the players in 1991, before that point came?
Yeah. I mean I talked to that immediate generation of players, of course because I was with Alaska I had access to the Alaska team: Bong Hawkins, Jolas (Lastimosa), Johnny (Abarrientos ), Poch Juinio, Dicky (Bachman). I met Sean Chambers in Sacramento. I had a great access to them, and their feelings about [how] the triangle affected the game. Also, that generation of players is pretty accessible. They are still around Metro Manila. Not so many of them have migrated to the states as some of the Crispa-Toyota generation have, so I was able to meet with people who played against them or coached against them like Eric Altamirano and Ronnie Magsanoc. I think they were the people who played that time; they all said that that was one of the turning points. That of course and Ron Jacobs…

I expected to read more about Ron Jacobs in the book, given the public credit he has received for changing Philippine basketball. Why isn’t he discussed as much in Pacific Rims? I understand though that he is no longer in the physical condition to grant interviews.
I think there are two reasons for that: one, you’re right. It’s because of the stroke he suffered in 2002. He’s not available for interviews. It’s a shame because everyone I spoke to about him said that he’s one of the most fascinating people; that I haven’t met any basketball minds that worked like his. So it’s very tragic.
It was hard to really work in a complete discussion of that role he played, just because the narrative was off on its own track. And I think I did try and write about Ron Jacobs and the NCC team in one chapter, but I would agree that there’s a lot more to be said about the role he played. In my interviews with people, at least three or five told me that the first time they saw the blackboard, which is now called the whiteboard, in the dugout before a Ron Jacobs game, a game he’s coaching, was like an epiphany to them. The preparation he’d put in, he’d really thought out every aspect of every match, and everything he’d wanted to do with his team, and that was a big turning point. He used scientific basketball here. To him, even though I think there’s always going to be an artistic side of the game, he distilled it also into a science and brought a lot of what were then, state of the art coaching techniques to the country, which sort of kick-started the local game into a new era in the ’80s and ’90s.

Those who grew up watching the PBA in the late ’80s and early ’90s, are familiar with several role players then, not necessarily stars but who came into prominence like Rudy Distrito, the Loyzaga brothers (Joey and Chito), maybe even somebody like Ricky Relosa. Many of these players excelled at doing only one or two things, and it’s hard to see how they would fit in today’s league. Do you think that “scientific coaching” excluded a lot of so-called “street players” at present?
That’s a good and very interesting question. You guys know the game of Distrito and the Loyzaga brothers certainly much better than I do.  I’ve seen them play a couple of games, but the access that I have to those games are limited now.  I’m trying to think: they’re still specialists, I think, in today’s PBA. Although, they’re usually specialists because of their height, because of the tall guys who don’t shoot very well, so they’re good rebounders. From what I’ve seen from the Loyzaga brothers, I love it because they’re so much atypical as basketball players, but I think you still see some of that in today’s PBA. I mean if you talk about atypical, even Willie Miller is far from a prototypical guard. He’s built like I don’t know what, he’s so wide, fairly round but still really muscular, and at his quickest, he’s a blur. And of course he’s not [just] a specialist, he’s a scoring specialist. I still saw a lot of things in the Philippine game that were very unique, a lot of players, the moves, the styles didn’t conform to the basketball I knew in the States.

I’ve read a lot on American sportswriters who’ve written on the divergence between the American street game and the professional game. Here, you played a lot of streetball and at the same time you got to experience the pro game from the level of an embed. How does the divergence between the street and pro game in the US compare with the divergence of those styles here?
I would say that it’s a big difference no matter what. To me the difference between professional basketball and street basketball in the United States is even greater than it is here. In the US what we have come to think of as streetball is, at this point, not even legal basketball anymore. You know it’s like half the moves are travels and double dribbles. They’re very cool. I mean I like it too. It’s very entertaining. But it’s like you’re no longer playing basketball by the rules in that sort of American streetball. One of the things that I really adore about Philippine basketball and the PBA is that you still can really trace the moves that PBA players have; you can see their examples in streetball. Some of the moves, some of the side steps, the pektos, that kind of stuff, you see them in every game, every morning and every afternoon when it’s not too hot out, you can go to any covered court, any barangay court and see that. I think that’s really cool. You can almost trace the lineage of some of the styles of play from the professional league all the way down to the grassroots.

Do you think there’s been a conscious effort among current PBA coaches to try to refine that street style?
I don’t think so. I think for the guys who are good at it, they don’t hold them back. Of course, you don’t want their players turning the ball over. You want their players taking terrible wild shots. But you don’t see people telling Mac Cardona “Stop shooting that one-handed floater” or “Go to your left more.” They say “Score” and “Do what you do.” So if a guy has moves that are successful, no one cares how he does it. It’s the same as Reggie Miller’s jump shot–the way he held the ball, the way he followed through. None of that is something they would teach you in basketball camp, but if it goes in, no one’s going to argue with you.

In the NBA, the influence of the agent is very prevalent. Here, almost nobody talks about it. Are players represented by agents here in the Philippines? How strong is the influence?
I think there’s a strong influence of the agents. I think it’s different from the way it is in the States, not because it’s any fault of the agents. The influence of the agents here is hamstrung more by the way the contracts in the PBA are structured.
There’s really no free agency here, from what I understand. The players told me, when their contracts are up, their team either chooses to resign them or release them. They can’t say “I’m going to go on my own.” So free agency is where agents get their power from. They can take their player and just shop them around and get the best deal for them. It doesn’t quite work that way here.
And of course I think agents here advocate for their players. They try to get them the best deal as possible. They try to get them the best bonus as possible. Players try to get represented by the most powerful agents, if not, for players who are less big-named, they’ll try to get an agent who is not as powerful because they’ll pay more attention to them. And agents are known for having a sway over what kind of endorsements a player will sign with. Maybe an agent can decide if a player goes to Nike or Adidas for his shoes.
Around the PBA, people know guys like Danny Espiritu or Charlie Dy. There are well known agents naman in the PBA, but I don’t think they’re quite as powerful, not yet as powerful as David Falk or World Wide Wes.

How satisfied are the PBA players with their bargaining position?
I think from what I’ve heard they want a better bargaining position. I think in a perfect world they would want real free agency, where they can go and shop around different teams to get the best possible deal, and not sort of be at the mercy of the team. Because if they’re unhappy with the team, they would have to be very careful with how they express that. If they embarrassed the team, if they have caused the team to lose face, then that team can sort of hold on to their rights and blackball them into a bad contract or just leave them hanging where it’s hard for them to move from their position.

Did you get to hang out with Filipinos who are not at all into the basketball culture?
I think a lot of my best friends are into basketball here. I met them through playing basketball. I also spend a lot of time with photojournalists or with people who are into the arts. One of the things that has always fascinated me about them is that even though they are not involved with basketball, as I talk to them and they talk to me a little bit about my research, they would sort of unearth these memories of how basketball affected them when they were younger. People who claim to be unaffected by the sport turn out quite affected by it after they started talking about it.

When you hear Filipinos talk about the singularity of their basketball culture, do you detect any form of Philippine “exceptionalism” drawn from the uniqueness of our love for the game?
I wish there were more of that. Honestly, what I detect more often, and this might be just because it might be the more prominent voices that say this, in sort of woe-is-me tone, like “Oh, kawawa. We’re not as good as we used to be.” or furious like, “We need to reform so that we can regain our glory.” I understand why every Filipino wants their national team to be a contender for gold medals in the Olympics. I want that, too, but I think the Filipinos don’t need to reclaim anything, that the glory is still there in Philippine basketball.
The interview was arranged by National Bookstore, where copies of Pacific Rims are available.

As told to France Pinzon

FIRST OFF…
The number one thing that you have to think about is your talent level—the players. I’ve had a lot of success, but I think the major ingredient to having a championship team is to get them to play in his team. I think that’s the number one thing. Whether it’d be in the professional ranks, where you have to pick your player through the draft, or you get them through trade, or whatever way you might get them, you have to scout those players before you get them. First, make sure that they have ability to play well; two, they have the skill level to go along with their athletic ability, and three, hopefully, they have good attitudes. They’re coachable, in other words.

COACHING IS WORK
Coaching is actual practice and actual games. Every coach has a system, whether it’s a good system or a bad system, most coaches have a system, whether it’s offense or defense. Most coaches know what they have to do offensively with their team; they know what they have to do defensively. That’s based on the talent level that they have. Most coaches form their system based on the ability of the players that they have. That’s best way to get it done.
 
Next, you also have to sell the system to the players. In other words, you have to get them to execute what you’ve already planned. They have to be able to execute on the floor what you have already figured out in your mind would work on the court. So that’s half the battle right there. Let’s say you have twelve players on a team, you’ll need to have all twelve players on the same page as much as possible for you to be successful. If you have three, or four, or five who are not on the same page then it’s not really going to work.

Communication is important. Coaches should never feel that he’s so above and high that he can’t come to the level of his players and communicate. A lot of times when you’re trying to accomplish things, it’s not as simple as saying, “Okay, run as fast as you can… jump as high as you can.” Sometimes it comes down to explaining why you need to run as fast as you can or why you need to jump as high as you can. The players seem to understand a little bit better when you do it that way than if you just give instructions.

WHAT IF YOU DON’T HAVE THE BEST PLAYERS?
All coaches must be very flexible and they must have the ability to work with what they have, because you cannot always choose your team. You may inherit players; say if you take over a job in the pro ranks, you would inherit a team that you probably would not recruit. But when you first take over that team, your responsibility is to mold whatever you have. You can’t expect to come in and change everything that’s there right away. It’s the same thing for college basketball. For instance if you look at the Ateneo team now, I actually recruited every single player on the team at this moment. During my first three years I didn’t. Last year there were still two players, Chris Tiu and Yuri Escueta, which I did not recruit. I think it’s the responsibility of the coach to be flexible enough to take that talent and mold that talent because that’s basically his job.

FOLLOW THE LEADER
First thing that Chris Tiu really contributed in his time with Ateneo was he was a very good person. He wasn’t actually a natural leader, but he learned to be a leader. He had all the characteristics—but in his senior year he was put in the position where he had to take it upon himself to become team leader. I don’t always have to be the one that polices the players. I can ask Chris so it’s not always one voice that they hear. So it makes my job a lot easier if your star player and leader of the team is also a hard-worker and has a good attitude.

DOES BEING A GOOD PLAYER MAKE A GOOD COACH
I don’t think so. They normally say the average players make the better coaches because they have a lot more time to sit on the bench and see what’s really going on or how the coaches handle the team, while the best players are always on the court. Some of the best coaches have never played before in their lives. Some were just mediocre players; some were great players. It depends on the coach actually. Coaching is all about leadership. Coaching is about managing. Coaches are just like teachers. We basically have to teach and convince our students that this is the best way to do things so they can pass tests. In our case, passing a test is winning a basketball game.

CASE STUDY: CRISPA AND THE CELTICS
Number one is the talent. The Celtics was a very talented team. They had the best players in the league—same thing with Crispa. You had Abet Guidaben, Philip Cezar, Bogs Adornado, Bernie Fabiosa and Atoy Co. Two, was obviously the coaches. Good coaching isn’t always X’s and O’s. It’s not always how good the coach is at putting plays on the board or setting up defense, it also has a lot to do with motivation. Being able to will players to win, giving them the reason to go out and win championships, giving them a goal, setting a goal that they can strive to reach so that they can reach and become the best team in the league.

In the pro level, sometimes it comes down to money, sometimes it comes down to bonuses, how much the guys are earning, how much did they make if they win a championship, how well the management treats its players. So that’s also another form of motivation, but it’s a little bit different from what the coach uses to motivate his players.

RITUALS
When I was a player, I used to like to eat the same thing everyday, like spaghetti. But as a coach I don’t really have any. The only ritual I may have is if I lose a couple of times with this shirt that I’ve worn for the game, I probably won’t wear it anymore. I’d stop wearing it at least to games. I’m not really into rituals. I’m into hard work, and being able to out-work my opponent, scouting, training my team well, getting them into play every game and then motivating them to win.