INQUIRER Sports

IT IS THAT TIME when we remember not only loved ones who have passed away but also friends and colleagues who have made our lives richer. Not a day passes that we don?t miss them like we do family members who have moved on.

Long before a bevy of courtside reporters strutted their wares in our basketball leagues, two men toted microphones along the PBA sidelines to interview the personalities of the league. They were our connection to our hoop stars, asking them the questions we wanted to ask.

The late Jun Bernardino was Vintage Enterprises? first Man on the Ball, as that role was called. In 1982, he was the fifth man assigned to handle the interviews in the original Vintage broadcast panel. A former player for the Ateneo Juniors and UP Maroons, Bernardino was also an assistant coach and team manager.

Vintage would lose him to the PBA when Bernardino moved to the commissioner?s office. It would be just a matter of time before he would become the top honcho of the pro league, a post that he had clearly prepared for all the years he was involved in the game.

We miss Jun as the big brother to many of us who were beginning our sports careers in the ?80s.

In the same way that Joe Cantada and Pinggoy Pengson nurtured his broadcasting skills, Jun would encourage and guide us, always reminding us of our responsibilities to the league and to the public that followed it.

After the PBA, he continued to be involved in sports as NCAA commissioner and later as one of the prime movers of Sports Vision, the creators of the Shakey?s V League. All of us whom he guided in our early years were more than willing to help in his new ventures. His passion for sports was contagious and when he passed away too soon a few years ago, Philippine sports lost a dedicated and sincere leader.

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Romy Kintanar was a sports magazine editor and former actor when he picked up the microphone to be Man on the Ball. He was a tri-media man, writing a sports column and hosting a popular daily radio show for the PBA fans while serving as TV interviewer.

Kintanar was the first broadcast partner I worked with in the PBA radio coverage.

He would do the games with me and dart away for his halftime and endgame interviews for television. Later on when Ed Picson became my regular partner, Kintanar would bring us to Kamayan-Saisaki for post-game chats and to meet the who?s who of sports.

Romy?s biggest contribution to PBA lore was his radio show. In a pre-Internet era, Kintanar created that interactive link where fans could connect with their cage stars through questions on the air and meet and greet sessions, long before that term was in vogue.

It was a tad sad that when Kintanar passed away, not too many fans bade him goodbye and thanked him for the bridges he built. Maybe because many of them did not know that he had moved on.

Jun Bernardino and Romy Kintanar made all our lives a ball with their work and friendship. They are definitely the kinds of people you miss.