FROM Foton’s coach in the Philippine SuperLiga to its local and foreign reinforcements, there couldn’t be a bigger boost to local volleyball than hosting top-tier international tournaments here.
Foton Pilipinas assistant coach Villet Ponce-De Leon, who coaches the squad in the PSL, said tournaments like this help promote the sport in the absence of the big-time backing that basketball gets.
“With volleyball, especially here in the Philippines, it’s just now we have this commercial-type of competition,” said Ponce-de Leon, who said the trust given to the country by the Asian Volleyball Confederation, and, by extension, the world volleyball body (FIVB) is proof of the sport’s rise here.
And that can only mean good for the national team.
“If you’re going to stick with what we have here and you will not go out and try pitting yourselves against Europeans, Americans, and other Asian countries, who really top the scene in volleyball, you will not grow,” Ponce-De Leon told SportsIQ, Inquirer’s omni-platform radio show, Thursday evening.
“If ever we’re going to have a national team, this national team would train outside, experience everything, expose them not just within Asia but expose them outside of Asia.”
The Tornadoes will be beefed up by imports Lindsay Stalzer and Ariel Usher and local reinforcements Aby Maraño and Jovelyn Gonzaga.
Usher said exposure to the international game can teach the national team to look at the different styles of play and give them the opportunity to make it their own.
“Every place in the world plays volleyball differently, and I think they need to find what their thing is,” said Usher, who graduated from University of Portland. “Just taking other things that are successful in other places and make it their own.”
“And more international exposure,” added Stalzer, “to see other countries’ style.”
And that’s what the women’s club championship provides—exposure to the international brand of volleyball play—among others.
“Because we’re hosting it here, we expect that it will draw a lot of interest from the grassroots and young kids will watch the games,” said Gonzaga of RC Cola-Philippine Army. “Watching the international players here will inspire kids more.”
“It’s a good way of marketing volleyball in the country, target players and to inspire the youth so they have something to aspire for beyond playing volleyball in the streets,” said Maraño, of the newly-minted champions F2 Logistics.
