The Constitution of A Varsity Player
This story has its roots in the year 2001. That was still the time when Jubilee Christian Academy was still located along Dona Hemady, where Seniors were rulers, where the rest of the high school population were the knights and the bishops, where grade schoolers were the townspeople and where the teachers were evil villains constantly planning the demise of the people. That was the era of my life when 7:30 AM to 11:30’s were the period of boring sleep-all-you-can subjects, when lunch was the time my barkada planned our next moves after the Bell of Freedom gave us permission to escape from our prisons, and when 1 to 4 PM classes were merely hours we wasted to arrive at a kingdom where the students took their rightful places.
If there is one thing that every Jubileean has in common, it is the unwavering desire to be freed from the thresholds our teachers kept us in until they finally dismissed us. Jubileeans know by heart the sound of the school bell; the clatter so loathed by our teachers, and yet embraced with open arms by every high school student. The school bell used to ring uncontrollably as soon as the school clock struck 4 PM. Its buzz would pierce through the lifeless atmosphere like cymbals clanging at its loudest. This was the time when sleeping students (imagine some with drools down their chins) would jump at the sound of the bell, when teachers would sigh in exasperation, and when the rest of the population who were still awake fixed their bags and ready themselves to leave their respective prisons (it felt like it, too; we even had steel bars on our windows that added to that effect).
But that clamor didn’t just affect the high school students. At the sound of the bell, the energetic younger Grade school students who were possibly playing tag or ghost hunting in the Chapel with their friends might immediately realize that their sundo is more or less an hour late; the pre-high school girls sitting along the stone benches three steps outside the basketball court would begin smoothing their dresses with the high hopes of being noticed by their high school crushes, and the teachers who were diligently preparing the next day’s lecture in the faculty office might suddenly decide to leave their cubicles and mechanically proceed to the basketball court to find the “cool” high school kids and “bond” with them. While the high school students (many of whose classrooms were located on the uppermost floor, one or two classrooms on the second floor) evacuated the rooms, everyone else stirred into something more real, something genuine.
At 4 PM, the magic of sports brought the students alive.
Thy Will Be Done
One day during lunch period, my kabarkada Candoy stood up and made an announcement. “Try-outs kayo bukas!”
Everyone around the table knew which try-outs she was referring to. Candoy was one of the only two Women’s Basketball Varsity players left that year, the others having just graduated, and unless Candoy recruited thirteen more players to fill up the slots, then there might not even be a team.
For some crazy reason, no one hesitated to join. It was so automatic: sige! shouted someone. And one Game! after the other and eventually the whole barkada was duped into joining the try-outs. That was crazy! The most experience any of us could have had at the sport was touching the dang ball! I was finishing my lunch as fast as I could when a “Hoy Jacky! Walang takas!” accompanied with a strong pat on the back which almost choked me, and to keep these crazy friends of mine from taking more of my attention away from my food I nodded them a yes, and proceeded to gulf down my meal as if the world was ending in a few minutes.
Later on in class, I realized what I had done.
Holy Crap.
Why the hell would anyone agree to something like this?! We didn’t know how to play! What were my stupid friends thinking?! There’s a big difference in just watching the players run after the ball and playing the game itself. Watching the sport is just that: pure watching. You feel the excitement of the game without the possibility of getting injured (unless the player suddenly decides to throw himself at you, now that’s quite an excitement!). I had agreed to risk the chance of getting hit in the head with a thick-skinned fully-inflated material (that could, if you really think about it, serve as a weapon to hit your enemy with if one were mad enough) and of having comatose if my fragile head couldn’t take the fierce blow. Boo hoo, what had you gotten yourself into, Ms. Jacky Chua?
Of course I wouldn’t back out. I’d rather go into forced hibernation than eat my pride. And anyway, what the heck. My afternoons usually rotted away playing Yahoo games at home, anyway.
So the next day, instead of falling in love with the magic of the 4 PM bell , I learned to fear it.
Day Zero: Meeting “Six Foot”
So what was it that scared me the most that fateful Tuesday afternoon? I was wearing comfortable jogging pants and a loose shirt, had eaten just the right amount of food at the right time, my shoelaces were knotted fine and my hair already tied up in a ponytail to keep the strands away from my eyes. That Candoy had announced this whole adventure-to-be of ours just the day before and had thrown us all into this affair wasn’t the issue. Something else was bothering me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
The bell rang and everyone swarmed out of the classrooms like wild animals whose cages had just been opened. While others rejoiced their freedom by rushing to their companions dallying along the corridors, my buddies and I were gathered in the room, huddled in a circle. So what do you think it’ll be like? What do you think’s going to happen?
A few minutes later my barkada and I (all except for Candoy, who had gone ahead a long time ago) all headed downstairs, the excitement over trying out for the team dying down a bit. We walked slowly, as if time had gone slower just to accommodate us. But as soon we reached the ground floor, we heard a whistle blow. “Hoy! Late na kayo!”
It was Candoy! We all threw our bags down against a wall and ran towards the group of girls seated in a semi-circle in front of the notorious Coach Kenneth, famous not only for having been a legendary basketball player of our school while he was still studying there, but for also being the Coach of our Volleyball Team and the three basketball teams of our school (Women’s, Men’s Grade School and Men’s High School). He has won many awards for the school, not just as a former star basketball player but also as a well-rounded Coach.
We hastily sat down and looked up at the man who was tall even while seated. Rumor had it that he was a six footer. From the back row where I was sitting then, I doubted the accuracy of that gossip and estimated that the working student (he was in college then) had to be much taller than that.
The man--- his small eyes, high cheekbones and fair complexion accentuating his Chinese descent ---looked at each one of us, as if carefully analyzing every pimple, every pore that were on our faces. I felt him size us one by one with one long stare that practically took the strength out of me.
What was he looking for? Why was he eyeing us that way?
That was when he announced the details. First training on Thursday, 4 PM sharp. Bawal ma-late. 6 PM matatapos. Sometimes it might end later. Then that was it.
“We have a club meeting then,” someone piped up.
“Diskarte mo na.”
Oh.
Goodbye Clubs. Goodbye Yahoo. Goodbye Neopets. Goodbye 4:30-7 PM’s.
He called the male varsity players and ordered them to jog for thirty minutes. My friends and I were surprised at first, then later on shooed our reactions by shaking our heads and laughing it off later on. Someone suggested that we go to a nearby restaurant known as Binalot and eat while planning our next move.
If there’s one piece of advise I can give anyone, it’s that when in doubt, eat.
First Day High?
Right after that Thursday’s four o’clock bell my barkada and I sprinted to the bathrooms and, giggling and laughing, jumped into our interpretations of basketbolista outfits. I wore maong shorts, a very loose shirt, and a ponytail to keep my hair from flying in all directions.
We were well on our to our first basketball training.
It took us ten minutes to change, another ten minutes to fix each other up (yes, girls do fix each other up. We tend to make sure the other doesn’t look like crap when she gets to the court) and another ten minutes to grab our bags and go down the stairs (back then, our idea of sprinting was equivalent to fast-walking.)
When we got to the quadrangle where the courts were, our Coach Kenneth, with all the manliness a six-footer white macho guy could have, looked down at us with his lips and eyes in straight lines and an eyebrow raised. My friends and I exchanged weird expressions before Coach ordered us to fall in line. We asked Candoy what it was that Coach was going to ask us to do. She sighed and put on a forced smile with matching taas-kilay effect. “Ano sa tingin niyo?”
Coach surprised us when he ordered us to jog around the basketball court ten times (Twenty minutes late na pala tayo?!). How could anyone forget running around for such a long time in maong shorts! Thick hard cloth against sweating skin: the stress! While jogging though, we began to joke around, wondering who’d be the first to get kicked off the try-outs list. We could have laughed our heads off at our jokes had Candoy and the Coach not scolded us for being too boisterous during training. (“Five more minutes!” hollered the almighty Coach!)
For some reason, we all expected that that was the day we’d have our first game. But no. Nothing of the sort happened.
We were taught how to dribble. Dribble, dribble, dribble. The Coach threw some, rolled the other, balls at us. He was smiling at us, telling us to practice dribbling. But for some reason, no matter how much smiling a six foot something guy does at you, he’ll still be a six foot something guy who looks like he could tear you to shreds while wearing that peaceful looking smile (He must have been a Buddha in a past life. A giant-sized Buddha.) But we followed his instructions.
We dribbled. Or at least that’s what I call what we did.
Our palms surely hit the ball’s skin, but I think in today’s definition maybe what we were doing wasn’t really dribbling. It was like slapping the ball downwards and slapping it again when it bounced back up. The ball ran away from many of us, me included, and just imagine a girl in maong shorts running after a ball every five dribbles! I bet that was a hilarious scene.
The Coach was still smiling. Did he think we were hilarious, too?
Coach all of a sudden decided that that was the day he would teach us how to shoot the ball from the free throw line. Get the ball into the hoop by aiming it with our good hand. I was able to shoot the ball, but definitely not into the basketball ring (A few seconds after we heard a ball bounce on the second floor). Fortunately though, everyone was so miserable at shooting that we just ended up laughing at each other. That shooting practice not only ended with our team captain and our Coach sighing exasperatedly, but also with Coach ordering us to run across the court and back five times because of the noise pollution we had been creating. That was quite hellish for people who hated running! But we took it in with stride because of how Coach treated us. The obvious frustration on his face (the smile was gone by then) contradicted his gentle (yet loud!) manner of speaking. It was a huge surprise from the overwhelmingly deep and evil-sounding voice I usually expected coaches to have. In fact, he felt more like a masungit kuya rather than a coach.
By that time I must have had a scowl on my face because the maong shorts was really making me run like a slug (that day I found out that there was a button inside my shorts. Who makes buttons inside shorts?!) I looked around and realized that everyone else was in jogging pants and was running more easily than I was. Okay, enough said. The period of maong shorts had just ended its reign.
Water break was a drop of heaven. Unfortunately, good things don’t last and a few minutes later Coach pulled us back into purgatory as soon as he blew his whistle.
We gathered in a semi-circle around the Coach, sitting down cross-legged on the concrete floor, staring straight up at this giant of a man again.
He sat on a stool, smiled, and gave us some good news: every one of us had potential. He explained to us the current situation of the Women’s Basketball team: that there were then fifteen to twenty girls trying out for the Women’s Basketball Varsity Team, that the team was only allowed to accept thirteen new players, and that our new team captains were Candoy and An-ge (a senior that year). Trainings would promptly start at 4:30 PM every Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
The Coach gave us a pep talk then that I can’t remember now, but I know made me feel proud. I was trying out for a team that had been garnering trophies for so many years. I wanted to be part of the dream team. Every one of us did.
All of a sudden, I couldn’t wait for next Tuesday.
Game.
Today’s a sweet November day in 2006, and I can’t for the life of me remember what exactly happened during my first game. There are just a few basic details that are still left in my head: 1.) That our opponent was a school in Antipolo named Faith Academy. 2.) Faith Academy’s an international school where all these Koreans, Japanese and American students go to if they want to pursue their studies here in this foreign country. And so, maybe they import their foods and feed these kids ten times more meals than us locals, but heck, the girls we played with weren’t only huge and bulky but speedy as well. Ah, and maybe the last but most important part of all (to me at least): 3.) That was when I made my first foul.
If you’ve never played basketball with me then lucky you. Imagine a skinny girl who has the speed and endurance of a human horse (Hey, I’m proud of that!), the inability to stop herself from running too fast (Candoy: Jacky! Break! Break fluid break fluid BREAK FLUID!; Referee: (blows his whistle) Traveling!) and for some reason bones as strong as… well, hard bones. During all of our practice games these bones have ---unintentionally, of course --- hurt my teammates at least once (They were accidents!) and sprained my team captain, Candoy, more times than I have actually scored. None of these actions were intentional! Honest!
So before our first game my teammates were all teasing me non-stop: Careful not to get fouled out! Careful with the fouls! Foul from the left, foul from the right, everyone was screaming Jacky Wag magfoul! Everyone thought it was hilarious, but I was in such a panicky mood then that the word Foul was swimming in my head back and forth!
I couldn’t help it. I was so nervous I even barfed before the game even began!
I think that was the first time that our whole team was complete (or at least there were a lot of us. Barely five people trained whenever we had our training sessions) which excited us all the more. Bunch of amateur basketball player wanna-be’s pitted against a troop of Hulk-shaped figurines with boobs! If David took on Goliath, why can’t we take on these Amazons?!
This is the part where my brain fails its job of remembering a memory. I’m sure something great happened during the first three quarters, but my brain can’t seem to find the zoom in button on those first thirty something minutes of that game and has entirely focused on the last quarter.
Actually, what happened then was quite predictable: we were losing terribly (by a hundred points) because these macho women were slowly eating every one of us for their meriendas, and for a few seconds during the last quarter I thought I had doomed myself.
I was pushing the larger girl sideways with my butt, trying to get the rebound. But I couldn’t! She was too big for me, too strong. I put one leg in front of her and she copied my move on me! I stretched an arm to try to push her backwards but she just shoved me away! The ball was flying, and there was nothing I could do to get it! Time slowed down for a few seconds and that ball seemed like it was approaching us! The opponents were making a pass to the girl I was guarding! They weren’t shooting after all!
That was the moment of truth. I jumped up, not really thinking of anything except getting that ball. I threw my right arm upwards, aiming for that item that I knew I had to get; my world slowing down during those seconds.
Imagine this word being hollered in slow motion: Rar. That roar was accompanied with my one arm already up, the other in hot pursuit, my feet off the ground, and a macho woman behind me.
From the corner of my eye I saw the girl fall backwards, and I realized that hey, the ball was mine!
Again, imagine a skinny girl jumping upwards, the ball suddenly allowing itself to be captured by open hands and a girl with arms and legs stretched to the maximum.
Then boom.
Everything just went fast forward. The next thing I knew, the girl I was guarding was lying on the floor, screaming “My nose! My nose! My nooooooooooooose!”
I held the ball in my hand and stared at her, dumbfounded. What the?!
She continued to scream. A few seconds later I screamed too.
“Foul out! Foul out na ako! Coach Kenneth foul out! Foul out na ako! Tanggal na akoooooooooo!”
It took me a few minutes to realize that I was running around the court with my hands in my hair. I kept on apologizing to the girl (she was Japanese, I think) who said nothing but ‘My nose, my nose’ while I kept on screaming “foul out na akoooooo!”
Shit. It was very embarrassing.
We went home that day laughing at me. I thought Coach Kenneth was mad, but it turned out he wasn’t. “Parang manok na pinutulan ng ulo!” He had remarked after the game. Afterwards, Candoy added, laughing, “foul out na akoooooo!”
Who’s the better basketball player now?
That summer was the first time that I was able to really play against An-ge.
It was one hot summer afternoon when I saw her approaching the court. I wasn’t the only one who saw her, though: half the team did, too. A chorus of “An-ge!” materialized, and the fresh graduate felt welcome.
It was a three-on-three match, composed of four teams. I acted as the “leader” of one team (believe it or not I actually improved during those months), Candoy of another, An-ge of the third group and Saui (one of our stronger power forwards) headed the last group. That was the first time I saw An-ge play the way she did: just like any normal person.
If there’s one thing I’m really proud of, it’s that I had a captain ball who deserved her title. Candoy is one of the greatest female basketball players I have ever and will probably ever meet. She ran nearly just as fast as me, was undoubtedly unmatched when it came to her dribbling skills, was the only person who could shoot ten out of ten free throws, and a great leader even though she couldn’t help but scream at us players as if our lives depended on the words she spouted. She loved us like a lover and disciplined as like our mothers. Most importantly, though, she trained and loved our team more than any of us did, giving up her volleyball career to pursue basketball. There was absolutely no one who could compare to her: no one deserved the title Team Captain more than Candoy did.
There are some things that people don’t say out loud, and one of them was the fact that some of my teammates and I could never see An-ge as someone who matched Candoy’s fiery passion and obvious talent. Although once upon a time also a legend in her own right, An-ge had decided during her senior year to focus on her academics and friends (her fellow seniors) rather than pursue her basketball career alongside us. So her rare appearances during both our official and unofficial games always made me feel uneasy because I could never see her the way I saw Candoy. In addition to that, we were more often than not put on the same team, and so I was always forced to work with her rather than play against her and thus see her display her skills as an ally. Whenever she was put in a group she was always the leader because she was the team captain. But I couldn’t see her as one until I had seen her play. I needed to see her play and determine whether or not she was worthy of the title “Co-Team Captain.”
That summer day on the basketball court I got my chance, and so I couldn’t help but feel excited; I was finally getting my chance at watching her play from afar during the first match-up: her team versus Candoy’s.
Disappointment washed over me though when I saw how she played that day. An-ge’s movements were a bit slower, a bit more rigid. Whenever she held the ball in her hands her movements were so stiff that I had almost forgotten that she was part of the original Women’s Basketball Dream Team. Whenever she ran across the court she looked like she might trip over her other leg. If there was one thing I know she did well that day though, it was how she executed plays that her teammates seemed to easily pick up.
Kulang sa training, as they say.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but afterwards I understood what an immense lack of training could do even to legends. I could easily steal the passes she made, Rachelle (one of my teammates) at the time could already run faster than her and was always able to block her path, Candoy often stole the ball from her whenever she took a few seconds longer deciding whom to pass the ball to, and her shots rarely went in (compared to the last game we had had, at least.) Seeing her then, I thought that she had lost so much by choosing her academics over a sport we all loved and cherished.
Priorities, they said. Priorities.
I never saw High school as a conducive place to really learn, thanks to my biased teachers, cheat-a-holic culture and lazy-ass classmates . It was about having fun! Wait ‘til college before you let yourself become a nerd. But while you’re still stuck in high school, enjoy yourselves! Let loose! Go crazy! I gave up joining clubs because of basketball. I gave up my Yahoo games and taking care of my online pets (a.k.a. Neopets) because of basketball. And I never regretted it.
The game ended with Candoy’s team emerging as first and An-ge’s team losing to every other team and placing fourth. I will never lose the respect I had for her, but at the time, I needed something more than just respect. I needed to know why she had allowed herself to deteriorate as a basketball player. I needed to understand.
Why give up something as great as basketball?
I, on the other hand, was on a roll. Bit by bit my basketball skills were improving, and I was actually hoping that one day the Coach would see such a potential in me equivalent to that of Candoy’s (now that would be the ultimate praise.) That was the point in my basketball career when Coach would always put Candoy and I in two opposing teams, would always make sure that we were pitted against each other during one-on-ones and would sometimes tell me that if I trained some more I’d probably be as good as Candoy.
Then I thought: If I could beat Candoy, then I bet I could beat everyone else.
That was the summer of 2002. I had finally graduated junior year and the first year of my basketball career was done. This was the continuation, the beginning of the life of the basketball player, and not the wanna-be basketball player. School Year 2001-2002 was the period when I courted basketball and took him to bed; now it was time to get married.
I had trained extremely hard to get to where I was then. I was present at nearly every training session ever since Day 1 of my basketball life (I asked permission during the times I didn’t attend) and was one of the few who transformed basketball into something that was more than ‘just another sport,’ but rather something that had become an integral part of me. I improved: I had transformed into a super shooter, had become one of the more reliable people when it came to lay-ups, and was undoubtedly the fastest runner the team had (I was the queen of fast breaks). I still couldn’t dribble as well as Candoy, Tissie, one of our small guards and a kabarkada, or our point guards, the twins Martha and Marion, but I wasn’t so far behind them either. I was always the sunog ng play, probably my worst attribute, but for some reason that didn’t affect me so much.
I believed I was ready.
How could I not be? I had to be! I had been training so vigorously that even my Yahoo Games nights had turned into shooting practices on the basketball court on my rooftop. I had abandoned my Neopets and left them to rot on
www.neopets.com and exchanged them with dribbling practices. I had no other club affiliations but my basketball team. And even my relationships seemed to revolve around people whose main interests were basketball, basketball and basketball.
That was the point when I believed that I was an indispensable part of the team; they couldn’t live without me.
The championship was an impossible dream without me.
After the game with An-ge, she bid us goodbye with a wave and said she’d train with us again as long as she had time.
That was the last time we ever got to play with her.
After that game, a teammate came up to me and offered some remarks regarding how I played my game. That teammate was Rachelle, one of our power forwards. For some reason though she wasn’t able to convey her message in a positive way, and I ended up getting mad at her. I told myself: How dare she. Didn’t she see how better a player I was compared to her?
Who did she think she was, talking to me like that?
One day I challenged Rachelle to a one-on-one game. Me versus her: who played the better game on the court? I was the fastest runner in the team, proven time and time again. But there were others who said that Rachelle had a chance of beating me one day. Some said that Rachelle was similar to me, and when I heard that I was smiling on the outside but insulted on the inside. I was the best. How dare you compare me to her.
You think you’re so good? Then try me.
The invitation was simple enough, was said nicely enough. Just a one-on-one to pass time. Coach Kenneth hadn’t arrived yet, not even Candoy was present. It was boring; it was a waste of time just staring at the boys while they played basketball. Wasn’t she bored as well? Didn’t she want to play? I observed her reactions like a hawk. My heart flip-flopped when she finally said yes, and we both headed for the court.
I snatched a ball that was lying on the floor and held it close to my chest. Then aimed the ball at her torso. “Game?” I invited, throwing the ball towards her chest. She nodded.
I bent down and stretched my arms side wards, guarding her. She let go of the ball and dribbled it a short distance away from me. She was clumsy; the ball didn’t bounce in one place; she didn’t have control of the ball like I did. Then she started to dribble the ball to my right.
Too slow.
I figured out her move even before she took her first step. I was quicker than her, which made me all the more confident. As she headed to my right I blocked her way, my right arm aimed for the ball.
Two seconds later, I had the ball in my hands.
I had the ball, dribbled it away from her and headed for the ring. I jumped into the air with my right leg raised, released the ball by pushing it into the ring, and scored.
This happened again and again for about five minutes, until someone shouted the words that still echo in my head to this day.
“Bully!”
I stood in my tracks at the word. At that moment, I saw Rachelle throw her hands up in the air, giving up. “Jacky sorry, mamaya na lang tayo maglaro...”
I stared at the boy who called me a bully. He was Kenny Coyukang, the younger brother of Coach Kenneth and undoubtedly the best player on the Men’s Varsity Team. I laughed. I wasn’t a bully, I told him. It was just a game.
He laughed. You’re a bully! He told me, smiling widely, then walked away. For some reason, his words struck me so hard that I couldn’t look Rachelle in the eye for the next few days until I had finally apologized. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know what I was talking about. All that mattered was that I had to shrink my oversized head---and fast.
Championships, Baby!
If there’s one thing my team and I wanted more than anything, it was to finally take home the championship trophy.
We were finally the new Dream Team.
With the addition of new players to the team (Angeline Dy, another super sports player and Coach Kenneth’s cousin, Shyla Sy and Gem Lim, two other super shooters, and Andrea Li, one of the better power forwards I had known) our line-up became much stronger, more solid than it was the previous year. By that time, Gem and Andrea and I had become close friends and basketball buddies. Our past times included playing basketball and talking about basketball plays while our teachers talked on for one whole period. It was therefore no surprise that by the time these two tried out for the team, they already knew everything they had to know.
Shyla’s one of my kabarkadas who suddenly decided to try out for the team. When you get to know the girl you’d wonder if she were the type of person who’d play the sport. To this day, the answer is still no. But one of the remarkable things about her is that she plays not just to improve but also to have fun. She cracked jokes when Coach Kenneth wasn’t looking and had a major role when it came to team bonding. What she lacked in skill, she made up with her cheeriness and diligence in training (not to mention that she had a crush on our Coach back then). Without her, the team would have probably forgotten how to smile.
Krissie Cabel, sister of former basketball star player Isaac Cabel, was also an essential to the team especially because of her ball-handling skills. She easily picked up Coach’s plays and used was also one of our Super Shooters. She was both a point guard and a shooting guard, but more often the latter.
Rachelle Yu was our resident small forward, guarding anyone and everyone in sight. Her speed was an advantage: something she developed throughout the first year of our basketball lives. She defended her opponents as if they were her sworn enemies, injuring them as well. If there was a character that ought not to be reckoned with, it was Rachelle Yu.
Katrina Inocencio is a gentler version of Rachelle Yu. Coach usually brings her into the court whenever he needed someone to do a man-to-man defense on a annoying character, and Ms. Inocencio is the perfect woman for the job.
Natalia Chua, sometimes part of the First Five, is one of our more kikay players whom we’ve teased as Prom Queen (for some reason she looks like she always has make-up on) and, strangely though, is also our power forward. It is strange because she always looks bullied on the court, especially since her opponents are the more muscular type of women. Fortunately though, even the ball has a crush on her and more often than not chases after her. As soon as someone shoots the ball, all Chu, Natalia’s nickname, has to do is stand in some obscure spot and for some strange reason the dang ball just can’t help but chase her. Maybe even balls love made-up girls.
Sheena Lee Villanueva was also part of the team. Also a sixth-grader, the power forward is the sister of legendary super shooter Stephanie Lee Villanueva, who had eventually become a member of the Ateneo Women’s Varsity Team.
Her six-footer best friend Kady Wilson, an American who was just in sixth grade then was a member of our first five. Over the summer her shooting skills improved, her dribbling skills excelled, and even her height went up (she was two inches shy from being a six footer before that summer). She was almost as tall as Coach Kenneth, and almost as essential to the team as Candoy, which was why she was always part of the First Five.
Marion and Martha were the ultimate kambal point guards, the latter more often part of the First Five. They had been playing basketball ever since their Grade School Years in Bacolod and have taken their talents to the Metro. Quiet yet extremely talented: that’s how I see these two.
They had me, the ultimate sunog ng play because for some reason I was always lost when it came to the court and couldn’t seem to memorize all the plays. But I doubt that there was anyone other than me and Candoy whom our team could rely on when it came to stealing from the opponents and turning these steals into fast breaks.
Joanne Sau, we call her Saui, was also one of Candoy’s closer friends. She somewhat had a balanced mix Chu’s luck at the ball, my speed and evasive tactics and Candoy leadership skills. There were times that Saui was a shooting guard, other times a power forward. Sometimes the center, and other times the small forward. To this day I’m not quite certain what her position really was, but she was more often than not a member of the first five, whichever position she was put in. And the best thing about her is that she’s still smiling even when frustrated.
And of course, our team captain Candee Teng. Without her love for basketball, there wouldn’t even be a team to speak of today.
We all wanted to win badly. We all knew that each one of us had a certain quality that could contribute to the team. I felt like we were the perfect team. Coach felt the same way.
If only I just didn’t mess up as often as I had.
Second Chances
“I didn’t think Jacky would get in.” Coach Kenneth said.
It was December. We were seated in front of Coach in a semi-circle, staring up at the sad man who had been coaching us two years in a row. We had just been defeated a few weeks ago by another team, and so far had not won a single game in the ISSA league. Our Coach was looking down at us, tired eyes and a gentle smile on his face.
Was he saying goodbye?
Our next game might be our last game, Coach Kenneth told us a few minutes before, almost in a whisper. “We did our best, it’s okay.” He told us. Some of us were teary-eyed.
What had gone wrong? “Sunog ng play,” Coach Kenneth said, looking at me. I couldn’t help it: as soon as we made eye contact, I couldn’t help but look down at my feet. He meant well; he was just teasing me. But there was so much truth in those three little words that he could have physically torn me apart.
The past few games usually started out great, but always ended up bad. I can’t remember the exact details or the exact sequence of events, except all I know is that my team couldn’t rely on me most of the time because, although I was a good player, I oftentimes got the plays mixed up in my head that I usually ended up confusing my teammates. Coach Kenneth once told us that as long as we got our plays right, we’d win.
I was always too nervous to remember the plays. Too sad, too nervous, too disbelieving. It was always that way. I hated it, but there was always nothing I could do about it. Or at least, that’s what I always told myself.
Candoy laughed at the memory. “Yeah! I didn’t think she’d get in!”
I stared at Candoy incredulously. What the?! Hey! That hurt!
Candoy laughed. “Remember her maong shorts?”
The triggered memory made everyone laugh. Hoots about the unforgettable shorts were thrown back and forth and I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed. Stupid idiots, laughing at me like that.
“Remember that game with Faith? She didn’t have any break fluids! Whenever she got the ball she’d run across the court so fast that she’d forget how to stop running!” Candoy hollered, slapping her knees while laughing. Everyone laughed as well, including me.
It was the season to be jolly, the season to be happy. We had lost all our games in that league, and yet we were still happy.
Or trying to be, at least.
Everyone started to pitch in, exclaiming jokes and laughing at everything. We were all laughing our heads off and saying who could have not passed and why they wouldn’t have passed. Remember this, remember that? Remember us then?
Then someone added, “remember when we thought we’d win the championship?”
Ouch.
Silence took over in a heartbeat. Coach Kenneth’s laughter was cut short. Candoy instantly stopped chuckling. Everyone else was quiet, and I can’t for the life of me remember who said that line. All I know is that someone started to cry.
And I followed suit.
“I’m sorry.” Someone started.
I followed suit. “I’m sorry.”
Before anything else could happen though, Coach Kenneth stopped us from going any further. “Magaling kayo.” He told us, smiling. I looked up at him and saw a Kuya disguised as a Coach. Here was someone who would protect us all the way. “I still think you could have won.”
The last part of our training sessions was always the stretching exercises, and today’s last set of exercises were done in silence. I remember looking up to the pale sky, light blue clouds taking over the 6 AM dimness. I closed my eyes and asked God to grant my wish.
“Lord,” I quietly prayed, eyes closed. “If you give us one more chance to prove ourselves…just one more chance, I swear I’ll go to Ateneo.”
I had originally planned on going to La Salle after finding out I passed all the schools I had applied to except for UP. I prayed to God with tears streaming down the sides of my cheeks. “It’s my fault, Lord.” I whispered. “One more chance. You know we can do this. I worked hard for this, Lord. One more chance.”
Three days later the school’s Sports Coordinator contacted Coach Kenneth. “There’s been a slight change of plans,” she said. “ISSA has made some new rules.”
“New rule?”
“It seems that they’ve decided to change their approach in this year’s competition. They’ve decided to do a round-robin.”
“What?”
“A round-robin. Your girls are in the final slot. Tell them it’s all or nothing. They have to get it right this time.”
We were in utter shock when we found out. It was almost 6 AM on a cold, December day, and we were glued to our spot.
I laughed out loud. So did everyone else. Until I said the strangest thing.
“Tae…! Atenista na ako!”
The Ateneo
We didn’t take home the championship trophy as we had hoped to. What we did take home though was the Third Place trophy, but that’s another story altogether.
The following year, I was officially enrolled in Ateneo as one of its Creative Writing majors. I had originally planned to focus on my studies during my first year in the university and in the meantime forget about basketball. Fate though couldn’t help but play a joke on me when she whispered in my ear that I could still play basketball, even if it was only during my P.E. classes.
I couldn’t help it. The temptation was too great to resist.
I signed up for basketball P.E. and took the TTH schedule, and thus my TTH’s were the happier days of my week (although throughout the school year I don’t think there was a school day that passed by when I didn’t play basketball, no matter how girly or how clean-looking my clothes were.) That was where I met Melaine Ringol and Valine Uy.
I was minding my own business in P.E. class when two monkeys (figuratively speaking) suddenly approached me. One spoke English, the other spoke Tagalog. I was shooting free throws then, and being a fresh graduate of Jubilee’s Varsity Team most of my shots went in.
“Galing!” The first character said. I turned around and saw two girls observing me. The first was Melaine Ringol, today the first female Corps Commander of the Ateneo de Manila University ROTC.
After laughing for quite some time, the other character gave me a nickname. “Weirdling!” She cheered. Her name was Valine, a.k.a. Reyna Conyotica, the Queen of Conyo’s.
The two began a series of teases, and I couldn’t help but return the favor. The three of us had begun laughing like wild hyenas. And the three of us later on were invited to a team known as Team Ba, the team comprised mostly of seniors.
Being part of Team Ba wasn’t enough for me. The desire to be a part of a Varsity Team still haunted me until finally Melaine and I decided to try out for the team the following year. We decided to do it one step at a time, trying out for Team B first then Team A. Later on we received bad news: I was in; she wasn’t.
At first I thought I’d be happy being part of the team. I probably was, at first. Later on though I lost the drive, and I blame the Loyola Mountaineers for making me fall in love with her for that, but that’s another issue altogether.
I missed Melaine. I missed Valine. And for some reason, the more I tried to play with my Varsity teammates, the more I lost the drive to play basketball.
At first I just missed Tissie. Then I started missing Coach Kenneth and even called my college coach Coach Kenneth twice, I think. Afterwards I wanted Candoy to shout at me again, for old times’ sake. I was looking for a Gem and Andrea to talk about the plays, and I wanted a Shyla to cheer me up. Worse, I was losing my focus on basketball.
I had fallen out of love with basketball.
It was a sad realization, and I couldn’t help but let go. In turn, my teammates got mad at me.
What was it about being a Varsity player that I loved so much? I craved for it---at one point of my life even fought for it. I challenged so many people, went through so much sadness, and attained a lot of
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