Fil-Ams’ bias for basketball

SEATTLE, Washington—Spurned by the NBA’s Supersonics who skipped town to become the Oklahoma City Thunder, sports fans here have found a new love in the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks.

For Seahawks diehards among Filipinos in this largest city in the Pacific Northwest, affection for American football’s current Super Bowl champions is sweeter because of wide receiver Doug Baldwin Jr.

Baldwin, who is part Filipino, created one of the sport’s most stirring moments with that famous trot while waving an upside down Philippine flag onto Seattle’s Century Link Field before a home game last year.

Baldwin’s offbeat way of honoring and rallying support for victims of Supertyphoon “Yolanda,” including his relatives in Tacloban, endeared the Stanford U product to the 97,000-strong Fil-Am community in the rainy Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan area.

“With Baldwin around, legions of us follow games played by the Seahawks,” said Abe King, the former Philippine Basketball Association standout who lives in picturesque Gig Harbor, 70 kilometers south of Seattle.

“But when it comes to actually playing a team game, basketball still holds sway on Washington Pinoys,” said King, once the leader of the PBA Legends, a band of United States-based former basketball idols from home.

Sometimes backed by ex-PBA stars from Manila, the Legends traveled to Filipino enclaves in North America and played each other for nostalgia-struck followers of Asia’s oldest pro basketball league. Proceeds funded the Legends’ charitable work in the Philippines.

“No doubt that Filipinos here are hooked on football as a spectator sport,” insists a friend, Joey Antonio, an ex-US Marine. Antonio and his siblings would don Seahawks apparel while watching the team’s televised games together.

“I concede though that, followed closely by boxing, basketball remains the No. 1 sport for Pinoys,” says Antonio. “It is fascinating how they have kept the local Filipino basketball tournament alive for years. Their love for the game is as constant as Seattle rain.”

Indeed, the bias for basketball can be seen in the long-running Philippine Basketball League (PBL) Washington, now in its 15th year.

The league likes to be known as a “community of athletes who find escape and enjoyment through basketball.”

Since it started in 1999, PBL Washington has been ran by Rey Santos, a 57-year-old wholesale delivery guy who drives his own 18-wheeler truck.

At least 50 teams sign up for each of the league’s spring, summer and fall versions for players 15 years old and up competing in several divisions.

The fall tournament attracted 500 players and opened recently at Tyee High School Gym near SeaTac International Airport.

The competition is always among “brothers” who want to test their skills while indulging in their passion for our favorite sport, says Santos, who as a youngster played decent basketball in his native Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija.

Until last year, the league created a cottage industry for uniform makers back home when PBL teams opted for made-to-order jerseys and shirts.

“Players no longer yearn for aesthetics like uniforms,” said Santos. “They just want to play in an organized league like the PBL.”