Cebu Football

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's March 16 edition) A COUPLE of years ago, the Cebu City Sports Commission launched an ambitious project aimed at sending a beach volleyball team to the Olympics, powered by the belief that if you give a local players the chance, they can make it. But such is the challenge of being an athlete in a Third World country that the CCSC is learning, albeit late, that even beliefs, dreams or the honor of playing for the flag isn’t enough.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's March 14 edition) AS you can tell from the weather, summer is almost here. With school out and a lot of idle time in their hands, summer is the perfect time to get your kids into sports. Sweating it out and playing under the sun may turn them a few shades darker, but that’s a whole lot better than them accidentally clicking a fifty shades of grey parody on YouTube, right? Try explaining that to your kid.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's March 12 edition) JUST recently, a group of fans started the Small Change, Big Change online campaign, a fund-raising campaign for the Philippine men’s national team. Of course, skeptics will ask--what? The over-hyped and much-marketed Azkals need money? Don’t they have TV shows for that or that multi-million peso deal with ABS CBN?

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's March 11 edition) YOU have to excuse my friend Raffy Musni if he seems to be walking on a high lately. Not only did his son's team beat archrival Don Bosco Technological Center for the Cviraa crown impressively, 23 players of the Cebu elite teams were also called up for the national training squad. And along the way, ever the jokester, he also gets to rib the DBTC parents who are part of the Cebu Football Association.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's March 8 edition) WHILE reading through the posts online of the secondary football results of the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association, and seeing how the Don Bosco-led Cebu City team was dominating the opposition, I told my friend coach Ray Calo that I was willing to wager a few cold ones for his team. Luckily, no one took it because the next thing I know, Mandaue City, represented by Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu plus some players from Canduman, brought Don Bosco back to earth with a humbling 3-1 defeat in the semifinals before blanking Dumaguete, 2-0, in the finals.

(This story came out in Sun.Star Cebu's March 7 edition) WEEKS of hard work for some of Cebu’s best young footballers will finally be put to the test today as they join the Festival of Football in San Carlos City. The Cebu Football Association started the tryouts for the Boys 12 and 14 and Girls 14-Under teams six weeks ago to identify the players who will represent Cebu in the Philippine Football Federation-organized meet. Other FAs from the Visayas will also field teams and from the pool, they will select the representatives for the Visayas for the national youth squads. “We held a tryout last Feb. 2 and since then, we’ve had training sessions every day at San Roque from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.,” said coach Antonio Trebol.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's March 5 edition) SOMEDAY I’m going to run out of praises for the Cebu City Sports Commission. But not today, not now. Not while the group keeps on putting the “roots” in grassroots. Consider the latest pet project of CCSC--a grassroots running program in the mountain barangays of Cebu City, a program inspired by a chance encounter CCSC chairman had with a Kenyan during a trip abroad. Why put it up in the mountain barangays? Well, why not?

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's March 4 edition) FOR the second time this week, another coach landed in the news but not in the sports pages, accused of doing something that we can all live without. Days after a basketball coach was slapped with child abuse charges for insulting a kid, a baseball coach was accused of molesting an 11-year-old. Worse, this incident allegedly happened in the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association, which just ended in Balamban. The incident is fresh, so whether it's true or not is for the police to find out. But this is alarming as it happened in a Department of Education meet, when supervision of kids is crucial.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's March 2 edition) MANNY Pacquiao is entitled to a P3.5-billion take from the purse alone from his mega fight with Floyd Mayweather. After taxes of course, his trainers will get a cut from his payout, but aside from the purse, he’s entitled to his share of the US pay-per-view income, which is projected to break the record, and, from his previous deal with Bob Arum, he also has a cut in the pay-per-view income in the Philippines. All-in-all, because of the Mayweather fight, he’d be a billionaire multiple times over. Now tell me, do you think Manny Pacquiao deserves a tax exemption? Does he, let me unroll my eyes, deserve a tax break to inspire him in his training?

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Feb. 28 edition) ONE of the culture shocks I experienced when I first covered the sports scene in Cebu was the conduct of coaches toward their wards. Having grown up in a sports environment down in Mindanao, where the coaches were your friends, teachers or an older neighborhood kid, insults were rarely heard on the field. What were prevalent were taunts kids threw against other kids. But when I got here, it seemed, insults were the norm and if you’re not used to it you’d be surprised, or shocked, by some of the words used in age group sports.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Feb. 26 edition) I MISSED the first few days of the PAL Interclub coverage due to the Thirsty Cup and other responsibilities, but I made sure to attend the awarding ceremony of the media tournament last Tuesday night at Lantaw SRP. This particular media awarding was unique as it’s the first time that the Manila writers, who usually dominate the tournament, are not in the top three. Nimrod Quiñones won the event, and a cool round trip business class ticket to the US (for the May 2 fight?), while Rey Fortaleza of Canada and Imee Garcia of Sun.Star Davao got the second and third places, respectively.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Feb 25 edition) NOPE, this is not a political piece, this is, after all the sports section. But somebody forgot to tell that to Peping Cojuangco, one of the most hated sports figures in sports recently. After all, he's the Philippine Olympic Committee chairman whose standard of sending sure medalists to international competitions has seen the Philippines to a new low finish. And what has our dear ol' president been up to lately? Well, he's busy dabbling in his real expertise, pulling strings to get rid of his nephew in Malacañang.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Feb. 23 edition) THOUGH organizers this year have limited the number of entries, the 12th edition of the Thirsty Cup is still Cebu’s biggest football festival, attracting close to 200 teams. This year’s tournament also attracted a strong contingent of teams outside Cebu, and it’s great that new players come in and test the local opposition, to see how we fare against them. So far, we are doing well and Ray Calo of Don Bosco proudly told me that two Don Bosco teams defeated Loyola Meralco Sparks in two age group finals.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Feb. 21 edition) THERE’s a running joke in Philippine basketball, and no one--at least in his inner circle--it seems has the courage to call a spade a spade. Sounds familiar? If not, go ask your kid. Remember the story of how the emperor’s new clothes turned out to be literally nothing? And no one was brave enough to say it for fear of losing their jobs? Well, that could be the case here. And no one in the PBA--publicly at least--is willing to say that Manny Pacquiao’s new basketball clothes are merely figments of the wearer’s imagination and his level of skill depends on who is asked.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Feb. 19 edition) A FEW weeks ago, Engr. Nilo Ferraren asked me if there was any news of the coming Cebu Football Association elections. I had none so I told the engineer a regular patron of football tournaments up north, that. He was disappointed, and he pointed out that the planned general assembly to be called last year was postponed. I asked CFA gen-sec designate Atty. Julius Caesare Entise of some updates and he said, the general assembly will come first before the elections as there are some changes in the statutes.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Feb. 16 issue) I HOPE someone from other sports will take a good look at the taekwondo program of Cebu and copy all the good things that they are doing. Why? Take a look at what’s been happening. After producing world champions in the past few years, Cebu City’s taekwondo team have sent eight Cebuanos to the national team after the latest national championships.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Feb. 14 issue) WHEN they launched this year’s venue for the Palarong Pambansa, organizers had to quickly assure that safety of the participants, something that wasn’t done in previous meets. Why? Because this year’s host of the Palarong Pambansa–the Philippines’ biggest gathering of student athletes–is Tagum, Davao del Norte. And let’s face the truth. In the minds of many, especially those who haven’t been to Mindanao, there’s only one image of Mindanao, especially in these trying times.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Feb. 12 edition) I THOUGHT that after the new group--Larong Volleyball ng Pilipinas (LVP)--got the blessing from the international body, the squabbling in the sport would end and the new national sport association could begin to get to work. Well. I was wrong. A brief background. The squabbling Philippine Volleyball Federation (PVF) officials were yanked off when the new Philippine Olympic Committee-endorsed group, LVP, got the blessing of the international body. Now, POC president Peping Cojuangco, shedding all pretenses of neutrality in this squabble, asked his old political buddy Victorico Chavez to come in as president of the LVP.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Feb. 11 edition) MANNY Pacquiao the boxer is a great guy. Everyone knows that. Humble and aggressive, always smiling but fierce, and of course, he never plays dirty and readily accepts defeat, even one that stings. Manny Pacquiao the preacher, is a great guy, too. The documentary "Manny" showed that, a perfect example of how one guy can completely turn his life around by completely immersing himself with religion. As to Manny Pacquiao the politician. Now that one's a head-scratcher. Already the top absentee in congress as a professional boxer-slash-politician, Pacquiao added "professional-coach-and-part-time point-guard" to his resume, making one wonder if he knows what he is doing.

(This is my Fair Play column for Sun.Star Cebu's Feb. 9 edition) SAVE for some who worship at the altar of political correctness, I think the latest project of the Cebu City Sports Commission is another brilliant move. Something that makes you ask, why did anyone not think of this before? Because of Team Cebu City has problems in getting top swimmers for its squad--perhaps because of the rivalry of swim clubs again?--CCSC decided to look long term and mold its own swimmers. And they recruited the Badjao children for their training pool.