The world's undisputed Number One sport is football. That is, soccer--not the fully-armored American version, or the grunting exhibition of Neanderthal manhood those weird Australian blokes call rugby. Aside from the Olympic Summer Games, the World Cup of football is the only other quadrennial athletic competition that pits countries, not teams, against one another across international borders.
China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei--all our Asian neighbors are football-crazy. And yet, the Philippines has no strong grassroots football program, no viable professional football league and no rockstar-grade football heroes.
That has always befuddled me. Why would the Philippines--this whole nation of sub-six-footers with short stocky legs--insist on wanting to slamdunk a leather ball very few can grab hold with one hand, into a ten-foot high ring even fewer could clamber up with two hands?
Haven't we vertically-challenged Filipinos realized that we could be enormously more competitive kicking around a soccer ball that's always on the ground?
Bespectacled all my life (I've worn prescription glasses since age 3), it was not my ambition to pay basketball, never excelled in it nor did I even try. Even when it was a compulsory sport in P.E. classes in Baguio City High School (BCHS) where I went to high school, I was always given the simplest play instruction by the high school coach: just keep running up and down the court, don't ever hold the ball. The team's pointguard, would often improve on that instruction. "If I get trapped by the defense and I'm forced to pass the ball to you, call timeout immediately!"
Other guys boasted of varsity team records for most points scored (the record was 38 points in one game by one player), most number of steals, shots blocked, assists, and so on. In four years at City High, I scored five points--two of them on freethrows in the dying minutes of a blown-out game my nerdy team was losing anyway. It's entirely possible I hold the worst record in the school's history.
Speaking of schools, Baguio City is the educational capital of the north. As if it wasn't enough that every school and university in the city has a basketball court--very often two: one indoor and a second one al fresco--every barangay has one, too. Second only to a barangay hall, the most common infrastructure project in Baguio is the obligatory "barangay covered court."
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| I studied elementary here in Baguio Central School from 1970 to 1976 and played basketball baking in the hot sun in this decidedly uncovered court. Finally in 2013, DepEd decided to construct a steel roof over it. Maybe a bit too late. Children today don't really play active sports anymore. They prefer to play virtual games on the computer. |
None of it is a waste of space, of course. These covered courts double as disaster evacuation centers, polling precincts, and public function venues including the most eagerly-anticipated for--your ubiquitous annual barangay fiesta "dance-for-all."
Garage sales, bingo games, political campaign rallies, graduations, rock concerts, beauty pageants, Christmas parties, funeral wakes, sunday masses, evangelism outreaches, child daycare centers, art exhibits, zumba workouts--the list of activities usually held in a covered basketball court is literally endless. I may have stumbled on the silent reason behind basketball's popularity, the secret of its community-binding power.
If you have a car that can take you anywhere you like, you will love to drive even if you never make it to the Indy 500. Similarly, when you have a basketball court that allows you to do a thousand other things, then you might as well bounce that rubber ball while waiting for the opening ceremonies of the next event. Playing alongside Stephen Curry or Lebron James is just a delusion never happening, but you shouldn't care. It is not the game itself that brings the community together, it's all the timeouts in between. Forget the score of the game, just live the dream for the moment. So you're 5-foot-3, never mind. The next time you pass by an ukay-ukay shop just pick up a jersey with the name "Bryant" or "Jordan" on it, get on the court and just start running, whether or not you can score.
Come to think of it, my high school coach's instruction to me actually makes sense. Now.
NOTE FROM JOEL: Hi, folks! Recently, I started a YouTube channel which is called "Parables and Reason" It is kind of similar to this blog content-wise. You can check out my channel by clicking the link below:
Joel R. Dizon - PARABLES AND REASON
