Cone says he would’ve been a writer if not for coaching

FILE – Barangay Ginebra head coach Tim Cone. Photo by Tristan Tamayo/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — The PBA would have been a totally different landscape if Tim Cone didn’t get himself into coaching.

The Barangay Ginebra head coach bared that he could’ve taken up journalism in college and would’ve been a writer instead if he had pursued his other dream.

“I’d be a writer, I think. I’d like to try anyway, I don’t know if I could be successful but that’s always been my thing ever since coming of out college was I want to be a writer,” said Cone on the Coaches Unfiltered podcast. Maybe I could’ve gone to journalism or something.”

“I really wanted to write fiction, be a novelist so that’s what I would like to do. I don’t know if I would be successful at it but I’d like to have done that.”

Cone, who grew up in Baler, Quezon, first studied in Menlo College in California when he was 18 before transferring to George Washington University in Washington D.C.

He then worked at a bank after graduating before returning to the Philippines when he was 24 years old.

Cone never realized his initial dream of becoming a writer as he was entrusted with the head coaching job when he was 33 years old with Alaska, which marked the beginning of a decorated coaching tenure.

From bagging his first title in 1991 with Alaska  to collecting his 22nd with Ginebra in 2019, Cone arguably became the greatest head coach in PBA history.

It’s been three decades since he made his head coaching debut with Alaska, but Cone still sees himself picking up a pen one way or another.

“I think I would have been writing at some point somehow,” said Cone, who won Grand Slams with Alaska and Purefoods,. “But not broadcasting because I’m terrible.”