MANILA, Philippines — Jimmy Alapag has had quite a career in the PBA, but he will be most remembered for his stints with the Philippine men’s national basketball team.
Even Alapag himself considers playing for the national team as something he will never forget, and serving the country is exactly what he wants young players today to experience especially now that he’s their coach.
“It’s a great opportunity for these kids,” Alapag, who was the captain of the Gilas Pilipinas team which won the silver in the Fiba Asia two years ago, said of representing the country.
“I can feel their excitement to be here and represent the country, to be part of the Gilas program so I’m looking forward to working with them,” he added during the tryout for the Sinag Pilipinas squad bound for Singapore for the 11th Seaba Championship and the 28th Southeast Asian Games.
“Again, my experience here with Gilas is something that I will carry with me for years and I’m excited for these young guys to get that same kind of opportunity.
The 37-year-old Alapag, who recently announced his retirement, is one of the assistants named by national team head coach Tab Baldwin to be in his coaching staff. Joining Alapag on the bench are Jamike Jarin, Nash Racela and Mike Oliver.
In his first official duty as coach, Alapag said he’s more than willing to share his experiences and knowledge he was able to take away from the times he wore Philippines’ colors.
“They are the future of Philippine basketball so whatever I can do to impose my experience and some of the wisdom that I learned through the years on them to make them become better basketball players and better people – that’s what I’m here for.”
Kiefer Ravena was part of the Sinag pool for a third straight shot to represent the country in the regional stage and the Ateneo superstar saw firsthand how Alapag is like as a coach.
“How passionate he was when he was playing is as passionate as he is when he’s coaching,” Ravena said. “So I guess you can’t take away the competitiveness of a Jimmy Alapag.”
“As he said earlier, being a professional, we feed off from each other, we learn from each other. He’s new to being a coach and it’s our first time to have him as our coach so we try as much as possible to really work with each other because that’s important in a team.”
Apart from his experience and basketball knowledge, Alapag is an invaluable piece to a team because of who he is outside the court.
“We think he has everything to give them as a role model, as a personality and as a professional,” Baldwin said. “So his involvement is very, very important in terms of how we believe we can best develop these players into something special.”
Baldwin gathered the players in center court for one final huddle on Monday night. One by one, the players and the staff peeled off until only five people were left in the gym, one of them was Alapag.
“That’s part of the rationale for having Jimmy here,” Baldwin told the reporter when asked how much of a help Alapag brings in as one of the coaches. “You can see we’re already 40 minutes after practice and he’s still here working with a couple of the young players on their shooting.”
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