Pressure? No problem, ‘chill’ Kobe ready to help UP win

Kobe Paras is working hard to help UP end a title drought—and he’s not afraid to say it. TRISTAN TAMAYO/INQUIRER.NET

Kobe Paras is taking ownership of #Atin82. It’s in the way he calls the University of the Philippines’ men’s basketball team. They’re not just “my teammates,” they’re “my Fighting Maroons” now, a testament to just how badly he wants to go to battle with a group of players who pulled off a magical run in UAAP Season 81.

That the run ended in a loss to Ateneo heightened Paras’ sense of urgency.

“I want to start tomorrow,” he said about officially donning the UP threads during a recent guesting at Inquirer’s live multiplatform show, Sports IQ.

Then, when told about the story of a UP supporter who had gone out of her way to watch every game of the team, even when the Maroons loitered in the underbelly of the UAAP, and who shed tear after hopeful tear for every loss that added to the dung pile, Paras made an even bolder claim: “No more tears.”

Paras will join the Maroons for Season 82, along with celebrated former La Salle swingman Ricci Rivero. With UP’s run to the Finals and the hush-now assurance that the pair’s arrival will trigger a championship bonfire party at the Diliman campus’ Sunken Garden, you’d think neither of the incoming stars would add to the swelling pressure.

But Kobe Paras was born into pressure. A son of a PBA legend and an actress who made males swoon during her heyday, Paras came into the world already carrying heavy expectations.

Pressure formed him.

“Ever since I was a kid,” he said. “I never really asked for [pressure], though. It’s just, you know, a part of my life. It’s not really pressure [for me] because I use it as a motivation. I just see it as people talking about me.”

He became the latest Filipino to carry the hopes of the country seeing one of its own in the NBA. Japeth Aguilar, Ray Parks and, to a certain extent, Kiefer Ravena shouldered those expectations at one point. But not the way Kobe did.

Paras, then a California high schooler, made a name for himself in college—mostly through viral clips and heavy media scrutiny on his celebrity status—thus the spotlight.

But then he decided to come home and join UP. Suddenly, he and Rivero were being anointed as saviors, the duo that would push the Maroons to the Promised Land.

Paras, now 21, is already numb to the scrutiny, to the expectations. He has taken a new-age perspective on things, especially when the chatter reaches for negativity. When he reads headlines heralding how overblown all the talk is about him and Rivero joining UP, he treats it like he were “riding a wave.”

“People do that for views,” he said of negative comments on social media. “Every time people go make comments about me, Ricci (Rivero), the team, ‘Ah, they’re just all hype,’ [I think] I didn’t ask for it, you’re talking about me.

“First and foremost I’m at the back eating popcorn with you guys. I’m chilling. It’s your expectations, your disappointments.”

That’s why Kobe Paras doesn’t mind adding fuel to the burning scrutiny. His life is a Billy Joel hit: He didn’t start the fire, it was there since his world first turned.

“I don’t really expect anything. Everything in my life is last-minute,” he said. “People think I’m gonna be [in the] NBA. I’m back home. Life’s crazy and there’s more to life than basketball.”

“And I think there lies the beauty in my life—even I don’t know where I’m headed; I just have to be happy. That’s what a lot of people need to realize—whatever you do in life, you need to be happy.”

No one can tell if his arrival will finally help UP topple Ateneo, or whoever stands in the Maroons way of ending a decades-long title drought.

It might turn out to be a struggle. But, Paras said that the Maroons had proven that “there’s beauty in the struggle.”

But he will continue making promises to the UP faithful. No more tears. #Atin82.

It’s a vow that comes with stressful pressure. But Paras has a different way of looking at it. “It’s a great stress to [bear]. That, rather than ‘Are we going to get wins?’ Right?”