For the sportsman

Media

Part of The Carolinian

Title: For the sportsman
Creator: Ma. Grupo, Rex
Language: English
Year: 1955
Rights
Fulltext: foe. Neither is there a Dionaldo who will dunk in his twinmarkers from quarter court, or sink it in under the basket. And is there another Morilla who will lord it over in the tapins and the tight pinches? Optimistic? No—slightly skeptic and frustrated games? So we say, Coach Dodong Aquino has a very tremendous task on his shoulders. .. that of building a solid, lethal and tough, yet too smooth, sly and fast team. Height is something we don't have much, the ijpont&man.... THE FIGHT IS ON. The first salvoes of the 1955 battle for the CCAA championship in the senior division is on. It was a whooping start for us. We bowled the USP Black Panthers off and good. Super is the word for that brilliant start. . . Still, this is a hard year. It is a hard year because it is a complete start. The old USC stalwarts have retired, and these new hoopsters that we have—well, so much has to be done, so much have they Io go through before we can really look at a well-drilled machine that could ably replace the ones we used to know. Maning Baring won't be around too, to plot any more plays or effective defensive stabs at the perhaps. But even so, those men aren't gods. We can build other pillars and lances, far better than the ones who used to drive us thru thick mazes of championship fights. But again, these new crop of hardcourt battlers (that we have) are barely out of their teens. Experience is something they have yet to learn, and feel. When they go out to battle, they aren't going to face erratic intramural stars, they'll be up against the best that our basketball world can offer. The elbows, the knees and the guts that they will face will be ones that have been wizened, hardened and sharpened by seasons of Eladio Villa fighting. They will be up against we have to have speed. Speed and brains to fill in this liability. Coach Aquino can fill these deficiencies. . . and he must. And to do that, he has to nag, scold, grind and unlease a thousand pep-talks and pointers, and add, pile hours upon hours of rigid practice yet, then we can go out no matter how overconfident, we'll break thru. But that's just a lot of speculation. Here is your team, as it really is—and here are the men who make it up. Here is the hand that will fight to keep that trophy here where it belongs, and for keeps. Here — dissected, dismantled and stripped of all the glamour and color down to the bare elementals: An intimate analysis of the newly organized basketball varsity team . . . enemy basket. In his place as mentor of the varsity squad, is a young man—Coach Doding Aquino. We are not overlooking the fact that we trimmed, or shall we say mopped oil the runner-up rivals to our crown. But that single accomplishment isn't enough for us to be as confident and stolid as we should be, in keeping that gonfalon. On the shoulders of a young man, your basketball coach, still rests the supreme and tremendous task of fashioning out of these yearlings, hands that will almost think for themselves, coordination and skill that will make the ball short of talk. Out of these tender saplings, these experienced, but untried and newly ordained Warriors, he has yet to fashion real soldiers and gentlemen fighters. This year, there is no more Sagardui who will hook-shoot it out for us at center court, or a Martin Echivarre Jr., versatile that he is, who will confuse, lose himself with the BY REX MA. GRUPO Sports Reporter practically the same machines we used to get sometimes clobbered with, maybe mauled. We got thru them with the skin of our teeth, yes. But then, we were powered with the keenest wits, and the deadliest and the meanest shooting arms in the whole business. And now? Nobody is trying to insinuate that what we have for hardcourt material falls short of the brand of basketeering that we have since associated ourselves with. But the CCAA just got underway, and we've still got a long way to go. That was only the first battle. How about the others? Would we get over... or remain somewhere there behind the hooks, the fouls and the bungled plays? Where would we be after the CCAA is thru with it's collection of mad hours, minutes On top of this year's reliables who shall retain the CCAA crown is Danny Deen, of foul-bait fame, a left-over of last year's dough who is now astride the skipper's saddle, Reynaldo de la Cruz, one of yesterdays trusted vanguards, deft with his two hands, and who now holds Danny's second axe, he is coskipper, Peping Rogado, who somehow hasn't forgotten or outgrown his love for basketball, and so is back at his old side-throwing, jump-flip tricks. These are the men who have instilled the spirit of loyalty in their hearts’, never leaving the team, until it's on its feet again. And to Jose Zamora, whose foul area spot hits told their own story last year, a big, hearty handclasp. And the men to share the year's tournament spotlights are Virgiiio Caing, fleet, dead-eyed skipper of the Leyte St. Paul's College quintet and tall dusky Ernesto Michael, who piloted the Sto. Nino Torrero's (Continued on page .17) AUGUST, 1955 Pa g e 29 blind thing that she is. It made her mad.... blinded her. Maybe she hated me for that. She couldn't trust me anymore after that. I guess that was where she began to lose her affections for me. She might've repeated a thousand times the words of forgiveness, but it would have been useless. What happened the last time we met, was proof enough. I even wonder if she ever loved me at all.... —It's all over I said, she retorted acidly. —Why, because everything was just a game, and you were just waiting for a chance like this to throw me away? You lied then when you said you love me. What a fool... —I'm phoning off. I have a lot of things to do. —This is good-bye then? If it is, can't you even be half woman to do it decently? Must you have to slink behind... He heard the phone click. The letter ended like the haunting after-refrains of a song: .. . Let's be friends, Ike. If not as good as we should be, at least enough of it to make us smile and greet each other. It not still, why, let's be good strangers then! I'd better close now. I'm afraid I've said too much. But before I do, my warmest regards to your loved ones. And to you, a special wish for continued health, happiness and luck. As ever, Sol. P.S.—To hope for a word from you is trampling on my pride. But anyhow, could I hope for it? From you? I wonder if you still remember where I live. I'm still here, Ike, in case you want to write. ditto He felt hollow inside as he folded the linen and placed it on the table. He stood there motionless for a long time. He thought of calling her. And his heart thumped wildly at the thought of hearing her voice again. He could not understand the (Continued on page 44) What Is this Thing ... (Continued from page 34} ing fun at her feminine foibles. Myl how he guffaws at the idea of women wearing slacks, jeans, or trubenized shirts, and sporting a mannish bob. The fact is, there are women who look equally becoming in a man's get-up as they do in their own. . . proving how versatile women are when it comes to clothes. But man's ego would not let him admit this. Besides, he can not stand the thought of being so unglamorously one-sided. Thus we hear him ridiculing woman right and left. . . the way she fixes her hair, her manner of dress, her seemingly illogical ways, her fickleness, and heaven knows what else! Yet, woman is only trying to be what she is: a woman. She has foibles, certainly. But then, do not these foibles add more to her charms? Somewhow it has never occurred to man to ask himself why woman behaves the way she does. We can easily understand that. Man, whether he likes to admit it or not, is an animal with an infinite capacity for jumping to conclusions. And yet he claims to be the more intelligent of the species! It's about time he quits kidding himself. No matter what he may think or say to the contrary, he can not do without woman. Behind his every success, there's a woman. Behind his every failure there, too, is a woman. Dux femina facti, as the Latins put it. Or, as the French would say' cherchez, la femme. Suppose there was no such thing called woman? Just think of what would happen to textile industries, cosmetic manufacturers, modeling agencies, etc. Think of what would happen to poets, writers, novelists, sculptors, or even gossip columnists. And where would Christian Dior be, or Max Factor, Jacques Fath, or Hollywood? In fact, where would the world be? And where would man be? There is no use arguing about woman; she must be taken as de facto a necessary part of man. So man may deride and disparage her all he wants to, he still can't get along without her. "For what is man, after all, without woman? Man would be half-man, half(Continued on page 44) FOR THE SPORTSMAN . . . (Continued from page 29} to their second consecutive championship of the junior league last year. These, are the first line of offense, and the sharpest, and trickiest barriers of defense. The rest, make up our second margin of victory or loss: Natalio Reynes, member of the '53 varsity, back at his old ballhandling job, Robert Bondoc, who headed and captained our own junior five, Cenizo Modequillo, star guard of the San Jose Jaguars, Boy Barga, from Iligan's St. Columban, Edgardo Galdo, of the Sta. Rita Academy team, Balingasag, Mis. Or., and two of the fightingest and best Baby Panthers to come out of the CCAA wars last year, Patricio Palmares and Gerardo del Rosario. That in parental words, is us, the 1955 Warriors. Individually, it is a collection of gifted and talented young men. And they'll make, if not one, the best team that we ever had. Our offense is splendid. It is there where we excel. The guards shoot, the center dunks 'em proper, and the forwards are just plain super. But the defense is as weak and shabby, flabby is the word, as the offense is good. The coordination is as pin-pointed and welded together as the figures in a joggle-word puzzle, and you know what that means. The weave, perhaps, the most potent weapon in our many conquests of the diadem, is still an awkward process with these new basketball army that we have. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any weave at all. Everything's New I said... including the most important of all elements — experience and seasoning. True, some have gone thru the paces of a CCAA tussle... But what about the rest? Have they gone thru something half as gory, twisted with strange and queer decisions and ridden with fouls?... in the teamwork and the responsibilities of a Warrior? But, they'll be there when the bell rings for the battle. . . and they'll be sporting the Carolinian colors. How they conduct themselves. .. let it be as grand and as magnificent as they did the last time. But they will be there, and they will fight, that is sure. The Seven Ages of Woman Infant, child, girl, young woman, young woman, young woman, poised social leader. -Apollo-Journal AUGUST, 1955 Pa g e 37