Not all players are ‘boys’ or ‘girls’

VERY OFTEN, a Filipino coach will make a postgame comment like these: “Our boys did a tremendous job trying to catch up in the last quarter,” or “our girls were a step late in the game.” Nothing really politically incorrect, wrong, or harmful about this, it seems.  Stemming perhaps from the fact that a coach is an older person, the players are casually referred to as “boys” or “girls.” To some it is even a term of endearment that connects to how we define work relationships in familial terms. The translation comes loosely from “mga bata” (our kids) but is quite odd when used to refer to one’s workers or bodyguards. You’ve heard it, of course, in local movies: “Tara mga bata” (Let’s go, guys), says a fictional hero leading a round-up of bad guys.  It’s so much a part of our lingo that nobody seems to mind. My communication students will count this discourse as another one of my unending probes into who we are as Filipinos. For instance, I find the expression “Pasensiya na po!” (your indulgence, please) a misleading statement. This was so well written about a month ago here in the Inquirer. I find old men talking loudly into cell phones inside the MRT or coffee shops a power showoff, or women stopping at the top of the escalator a queer mall habit. That’s just me. But using “boys” or “girls” can be outright awkward when referring to a college senior basketball or volleyball team, and more so, a professional squad. Time and again TV courtside reporters say that “coach so and so told his ‘boys’ to do this or that.” It seems an easy phrase to use since it does look like a coach is admonishing a bunch of kids when he or she reads the riot act in the huddle or the locker room. I read the books of successful coaches like Dean Smith, Rick Pitino, Jim Calhoun, Red Auerbach and Phil Jackson. They never call their players “my boys” because players want to be treated as adults, rather than as school boys. This helps in teaching not only basketball but responsibility as well because a person of authority is relating to a player as an adult. Maybe our athletes will mature a little faster and perform better if coaches refer to their squad as “our team,” “our players” or “our athletes.” In turn, those who patrol the sidelines will also report to the audience about coaches and “their teams and players.” The only ones we will probably allow to continue using these names will be the RP Blu Boys and Blu Girls because these have been with the national softball teams from time immemorial. Calling the cyclists the “boys of summer” will probably have to stay as well because it’s a succinct poetic description. But not using this phrase loosely could also hasten the end of the “bata-bata” (protégé) culture in some of our sports. We take pride when an athlete of ours succeeds and we immediately claim ownership. “Bata ko ‘yan” (That’s my kid), we say. In boxing, though, it might be just a little harder to eliminate the phrase. A fighter is often talked about as the “bata” of a certain manager, trainer or former champion.  When you’re starting out, it can help get fights and reasonable prize money. But it wouldn’t hurt to make some changes there, too. A fighter ages and matures faster with every fight. As in war, boys become men very quickly in the square ring.