BOND. Cone says he will still cheer for Alaska. Photo by Nuki Sabio, PBA.
MANILA, Philippines—Shortly after the final buzzer, coach Tim Cone—dressed up in his familiar get-up—put his left arm around LA Tenorio’s shoulder as they walked side-by-side on their way to the dugout.
“You were awesome,” Cone told the Alaska star guard.
It was a scene straight out of the old times, Cone praising the five-foot-eight Aces quarterback for another job well done. The American coach has always had faith in Tenorio’s talents, even when the former Ateneo star struggled to find his place in a loaded San Miguel Beer roster.
But things are different now. On Wednesday, Cone coached against Tenorio in the first of what could be many battles between the coach and his former squad.
About the only thing that remained unchanged was Cone’s unwavering belief in Tenorio.
“All I told my team during the pre-game was ‘we got to stop LA, we got to stop LA.’ He is the guy that runs the engine over there,” Cone told INQUIRER.net.
My team. Each time Cone says that, he is referring to B-Meg now, no longer the Alaska squad he coached to a Grand Slam in 1996.
Cone finally got that first game against Alaska out of the way. Paths were crossed. Bridges were finally burned. Questions were answered. The Llamados ended up winning the game, which was good Cone was happy with, but only because it sort of righted B-Meg’s start after losing its opener to Petron.
“This has been a tough game—a tough week—just preparing for the game, and I’m just glad it’s over at this point,” said Cone.
“We really needed this win. [But] I have no thrills, and I will never, have thrills of beating Alaska. It’s not something I will look forward to,” added Cone, who ended a 22-year-old relationship with the Aces to find new challenges for himself.
“I know I’m going to have a little bit of regret everytime I play them [Alaska]. That’s part of the decision I made leaving,” said Cone.
“It’s something I have to deal with all the time—missing LA [Tenorio], Sonny [Thoss], Tony [Dela Cruz] and Cyrus [Baguio] and all of those guys. LA is just an awesome player and an awesome guy. And I miss him,” said Cone.
The one person who did let go, who rid himself of all emotional attachments to the past was Fred Uytengsu, the morally upright Alaska team owner who seems intent on finally putting that period on the chapter whose pages have Cone as their central figure.
“He [Cone] didn’t wanna stay with Alaska. We’ve moved on, we’re focused on winning games and winning championships,” Uytengsu told INQUIRER.net shortly after the loss. “Tim made his decision to end our partnership. I’m over that. [Now] I look at him as any other coach.”
Uytengsu, who admits to have no contact at all with Cone since his departure, denied the reports that he planed if from Hawaii just to witness this first meeting of his squad and their former coach.
“I’m sure maybe it was a little bit interesting than normal but I looked at it as just any other game. I scheduled my flight to come home this date six months ago,” Uytengsu clarified.
Even some of Cone’s favorite Aces started shedding themselves of the emotion that the split brought out.
“At first, it was weird [seeing him on the other side] in the first part of the game. But then, we have to take care of our own business,” said Tenorio. “That’s [coach Tim’s] decision [to leave], he has his own reasons. I respect that. I have, we have to move on, it’s our job so we don’t have any choice.”
Alaska’s skipper Tony Dela Cruz, and Cone’s former trusted forward, admitted it took a while to absorb that his former mentor is now with the enemy—but maybe it was the picture his squad finally needed to see.
“It took me about a quarter to get used to it. But after sometime it’s normal again. He’s on another team, I’m in Alaska. What’s done is done. It’s a business,” said Dela Cruz. “What Alaska is trying to do is win the championship, and we’re not going to get distracted.”
Cone, though, said he will be forever linked with the organization that gave him his start as a PBA coach, back when he had nothing in his resume to encourage other teams to take a chance on him.
“When we’re not playing Alaska, I’m going to be cheering for them to beat other teams. I love that organization. It was a part of me for 22 years,” said Cone. With reports from Mark Vincent C. Giongco