Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net
If there’s one who truly deserves credit for putting the Rain or Shine franchise on the PBA map, it would be none other than Yeng Guiao.
Guiao was installed as the team’s head coach in 2010 and he led the Elasto Painters to two titles— the first in the 2012 Governors’ and the other during the 2016 Commissioner’s Cup.
But Guiao’s six-year-stay with the team isn’t all rainbows and happiness and just before the end of the 2015-2016 PBA season the fiery-tempered coach would leave the team and join the NLEX franchise.
“I really thought I would retire with Rain or Shine,” said Guiao Thursday at SportsIQ, Inquirer’s omni-platform sports talk show. “It was really, it’s the most difficult decision I’ve made in my career.”
Guiao, with his no-holds barred attitude, was the personification of the team’s rugged brand of basketball.
And even though Guiao would shout and curse at his team, that brutal honesty kept his players at their places during his time at the Elasto Painters’ helm, and earning the respect of team owners Terry Que and Raymond Yu.
“Napakabait nung pamilya ni boss Raymond Yu and Terry Que, and it’s really like family,” said Guiao. “Even with the players, with their families, wives, and kids, they understand me and they know me kahit nagagalit ako naiintindihan nila.”