Arguably, national teams arousing passion are found today in basketball and football. Occasionally, an individual athlete like boxers Manny Pacquiao and the late Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, sprinter Lydia de Vega-Mercado, billiards aces Efren “Bata” Reyes and Francisco “Django” Bustamante or bowler Paeng Nepomuceno, to name a few, could gather Filipinos together to watch and cheer.
But in this country, it’s hard to top basketball in stirring nationalism, interest and emotions. It’s perhaps because many played the game in street courts or in intramurals or cheered in the bleachers when school teams represented them.
Basketball is the one game we understand deeply. It doesn’t matter much whether one is male or female.
The boys played and watched the Micaa or the PBA on TV. The women enjoyed the games as well and became conversant in hoops’ finer points. Some women even played in organized school ball and could play with or against the boys if compelled to do so in pickup games.
That’s why rooting for the national team today has again reached intense proportions. After years of being kings of Asian basketball and even finishing third in the World Championship in 1964, the country went into a deep freeze on the international stage after 1974.
The birth of the PBA and the ban on professional players led to the formation of national teams that could offer only token resistance against the powers of Asia and the world.
But efforts like those of Northern Consolidated Cement, Gilas and eventually the pros rekindled national interest in international participation. Last year’s sterling run by Gilas Pilipinas to a podium finish in the Fiba Asia games was like a fiery balm that stoked the passion. Then, a gallant stand in the World Cup where Gilas shook up the hoop world added a delightful, though at times, painful layer of interest.
In the ongoing Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, the interest is again there although now wrapped in a blanket of pain after losses to Qatar, South Korea and China.
And with this twist of fate, the criticisms and barbs are being heaped on the coaching staff and the team. Social media has been kind in the past but unforgiving of late as many decisions of coach Chot Reyes have come under the microscope.
It is never easy for Filipinos to come to terms with losses incurred on the international stage. There is an unwavering belief that the Filipino, with all his natural athletic gifts and love for the game, cannot just lose that easily. Not in this game, not in this national passion, not when the team has already erected reasonable leads in games or not when it had chances to carve out wins in cardiac games.
This is the merry-go-round of emotions that every national team, especially Gilas Pilipinas of late, will have to go through. Realistically, the Philippines cannot win every time it plays as other countries have also invested in the game.
The point is that we should again, as the poet Robert Browning said, allow our “reach to extend our grasp” and battle anew for hardcourt glory.
The joy and the sorrow simply go hand in hand in this continuing love affair of Filipinos and basketball.