The PSA’s storied past

SACRAMENTO, California—Forty three years ago today, the late editor Iking Gonzales gave me my first sports byline.

My story was about a trivial soccer match Iking had sent me to cover in deference to the owners of the Philippines Herald, who were passionate about the game.

Although the piece ran in an obscure corner of the Herald sports page, I was in hog heaven.

Unknown to people outside of the news business, nothing is more rewarding to newspaper writers—except for accuracy—than seeing their names in print.

“You can’t eat your byline,” my dad used to say to keep me out of journalism, with its long hours and small pay, back in the day.

Looking back, I would have been better off as a medical technologist my parents wanted me to be.

But my folks came to the realization that ink flowed in the family’s veins.

My role model was an uncle, a pensionado sent by the government to school at Columbia University.

He came home to become editorial chief at Bannawag, the weekly magazine where Ilocano writers proved their mettle. Uncontrollable wanderlust brought him back to the United States.

He landed a job at the influential Des Moines Register in Iowa, rose through the ranks and retired as one of the paper’s senior editors.

I am mighty sure my departed mother and uncle, the editor, are looking down from beyond the clouds, exhorting my father to remain steadfast in his embrace of my chosen profession.

At age 93, Porfirio Directo Della is a loyal Inquirer reader and my No. 1 fan.

I can’t help but recall my personal history as the Philippine Sportswriters Association gets ready to bestow its annual awards.

The PSA is the guild that’s closest to my heart.

It had been led by sportswriting greats I had the fortune of knowing—the likes of Gus Villanueva, the long time Journal editor and the departed Iking, my idols Teddy Benigno and Tony Siddayao, Vic Villafranca, Bert Cuevas, Manolo Iñigo, to name a few.

This Saturday, the oldest media organization in PH will honor its athlete of the year and the achievers of local sports that sadly, have not prospered much since that first byline four decades and change ago.

But journalism, especially sportswriting—its most frenetic form—has changed a lot.

Once upon a time, only the wire service reporters like Ruben Alabastro and radio guys like Hermie Rivera freshened their stories constantly.

Our gang of scribes pounded the beat and waited till deadline neared before sitting down to write.

Today, reporters are children of the Web and the digital age who have the ear of a new generation of readers and with the urgent desire to deliver the news first via blogs, tweets and Facebook.

Technology has taken so much giant strides it makes me laugh thinking about our days on the road.

Covering the fabled Tour of Luzon, the bike classic was a challenge, to say the least.

In those days without cell phones, iPads and WiFi, we’d stake out the only long-distance phone booth standing to dictate stories to the impatient Manila desk.

At times, a competitor with a mean streak would rip the cords off after his turn and sent plodding writers heading to the next town, or going house to house at the Tour stop, begging for a phone to use.