Roque says Vicente left UE for ‘personal reasons’

It was the end of an unfruitful era for University of the East when former head coach Francis Vicente left.

Taking his place, in an interim basis, is the school’s athletic director Rod Roque who had his first match in the UAAP Season 80 women’s volleyball tournament against Far Eastern University Saturday at Filoil Flying V Centre.

Roque, who won eight straight titles as head coach of the UE boys’ volleyball team, said Vicente left the Lady Warriors for “personal reasons.”

“Coach Francis, I know deep within him why he left,” said Roque in Filipino after their loss to the Lady Tamaraws, 25-20, 25-17, 24-26, 25-22. “He left personally, he just told us that he would be leaving due to ‘personal reasons.’”

“When he said that, we didn’t even bother asking why. We respected his decision. When he said that it’s a personal reason that is what we will say to everyone. Let’s not dig into it.”

Vicente, a multi-titled coach with University of Santo Tomas in the high school division, was UE’s head coach for four years where he compiled a record of 2-45 and those two wins were both against Adamson University.

Roque added he wants the Lady Warriors, who fell to a 0-6 hole, to move on from what happened in the past and try to improve on where they are in the UAAP landscape.

“I told them ‘we move on’and whatever they experienced in the past let’s just move on,” said Roque. “I won’t change anything under coach Francis’ system because it’s been there for four years.”

“What I’ll do is slowly inject my own system. We’ll be correcting our mistakes in the next few days and we will try to improve.”