Mercado embraces her inner legend

It’s the journey that excites Stephanie Mercado.

Greatness is encoded in Stephanie Mercado’s DNA. For some, that may be a curse: Building an athletic career under the shadows of a parent who has achieved legend status in sports.

But Mercado doesn’t run away from it. She fully embraces her bloodline.

“I consider myself lucky that my mother is who she is,” Mercado told Sports IQ, the Inquirer’s live multiplatform sports talk show, Thursday night.

Mercado’s mother needs no introduction. Even to casual—millennial, too—sports fans, Lydia de Vega-Mercado is more than just a favorite target of internet death hoaxes. She has cemented her place in the pantheon of Philippine sports. Even across the continent, her name hauls back memories of glorious track conquests—Lydia, after all, was once Asia’s fastest woman.

Mercado, however, made it clear that she wasn’t in a race to match her mother’s accomplishments—literally.

“When I was growing up, I realized I didn’t even like jogging—what more sprinting,” Mercado said. “My parents never pressured me to follow my mom’s footsteps. They gave me the freedom to choose my own sport.”

She tried lawn tennis at first, seriously, to the point of taking lessons and attending summer camps. But one day, when she was about eight years old, neighborhood friends hauled her to the street for a game of volleyball. “It was just right outside our house but it also was the first time I realized how fun it was to play with a team; you’re six players in the court and you’re communicating and helping each other. That’s when I fell in love with the sport.”

And she’s become very good at it. A champion with the vaunted La Salle program in the UAAP, Mercado has starred with several teams to become one of the more reliable hitters in the country. This year, though, she has decided to grow her roots, signing up for a long-term deal with new team Petro Gazz Angels in the Premier Volleyball League.

It was a first for Mercado, committing to a team long-term. From an organizational point of view, it was easy to understand why.

Petro Gazz entered the league with an air of optimism, not letting its status as a new squad get in the way of being competitive. Management, led by team owner Ricky Villavicencio, Petro Gazz vice president Retchel Gabales and team manager Camille Cruz, another former La Salle standout, has left no stone unturned for the team’s PVL stint.

“It’s been very wonderful, it’s been great,” import Kadi Kullerkann said. “Especially for a new team, it’s surprising how organized they are.”

For Mercado, Petro Gazz represents something different.

“I was excited to be part of a new squad,” she said. “We may have to start from the bottom but the chance to stay together and reach the top, that journey is what excites me.”

“Whatever it takes,” she added. “Nothing ever comes easy after all but the journey really excites me.”

And this is why she finds it easy to navigate through her athletic career with absolutely no fear of being an asterisk to her mother’s legend. The lessons Lydia imparts to her daughter (“She gives me advice on how to be a better athlete on the court and how to be a better person outside of it,” Stephanie said) is something that guides Mercado.

“I remember my mom once told me that she came home empty-handed after her first Palarong Pambansa,” Mercado said. “Then her parents, my grandparents, asked her: ‘What happened?’ She said ‘I know I can beat them but I just lacked the proper training.’”

“Then my grandfather asked her, ‘Are you sure about that? Because if you are, then tomorrow we start training hard and there’ll be no turning back.’ My mother said yes and the rest is history.”

That’s the arc Mercado hopes to trace. She said yes to a long-term deal with Petro Gazz and there’s no turning back anymore. She may be in it for the journey. But don’t be surprised if, one day, she tows the team to the finish line ahead of the rest of the field.