I WENT to the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) office on Tuesday morning, where I go regularly as I am helping out PSC Commissioner Fritz Gaston in his office.

I decided to drop by the PSA Forum at the ground floor to check who the guests were.

And I saw two old familiar figures — my contemporaries in my early days in sportswriting, Ray Roquero, then with the office of Elpi Dorotheo, and Noel Albano.

They were discussing the long-overdue masterpiece basketball book written by Noel that covered the earlier days of Philippine basketball, from pre-war days up to the 1972 Munich Olympics, the last time ever we qualified for the Olympiad.

Fittingly, it was titled “When We Were Champions.”

Noel started it in 2014, and admitted there were times he almost gave up. He had the first draft in 2019 but could not find a publisher, so during the pandemic, he edited it and added materials with Ray constantly encouraging him to finish the book.

In the end, it was Ray’s party list, Anak Kalusugan, that funded the initial printing of the 426-page book, covering 25 chapters, painstakingly researched by Noel.

Noel was initially looking at all the Olympic Games, the Asian Basketball Confederation and the World Basketball Championships as the events that would reflect the times when we were indeed on top of the world in Asia and respected internationally.

But he ended up doing research on the Far Eastern Games, too, with a lot of interviews with basketball players and legends who will be unfamiliar names with current basketball fans, except maybe for old timers if we already include the players in the 1968 Mexico and 1972 Munich Olympics teams like Robert Jaworski, Bogs Adornado, Manny Paner, Danny Florencio, Ed Ocampo, Freddie Webb, Jun Papa, and Orly Bauzon, among others.

But then during our time, we were also not familiar with our players pre-war days and the 50’s, names like Charlie Borck, Franco Marquicias, , Bibiano Ouano, Manuel Araneta Jr. , Antonio Martinez, Ponciano Saldana, Bayani Amador, and Francisco Rabat. Maybe the great Caloy Loyzaga, Lauro Mumar, and Kurt Bachmann, we were a bit familiar.

Though I did get to know a lot about Caloy when I was part of the book project team that came out with the autobiography of the country’s greatest ever basketball player.

Incidentally colleague Ignacio Dee was part of that book project as he was with Noel’s book. And like Noel, I also had the chance to interview Caloy’s contemporaries in basketball.

And Caloy gets his long-deserved honor as he gets inducted posthumously this week in the FIBA Hall of Fame.

That is the beauty of this book I believe, getting to know the unknown about Philippine basketball, even as I have not fully read it. After all, I just got my autographed copy by Noel only yesterday morning.

But I am sure I would enjoy knowing more the details and behind the scene happenings in the world of basketball then: the long freeze employed by the Philippines against China in the 1954 Asiad, or the last minute heroics of Danny Florencio in the ABC Championship against Korea then bannered by the great Shin Dong Pa, a game I followed live over the radio when I was just a basketball fan and not a sportswriter as yet.

Include the time we lost a slot in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo after a shocking loss to Indonesia led by its greatest player Sony Hendrawan.

Noel does not consider it as his legacy, after all, he just wanted to have the book published and would rather leave it to its own destiny as to how it will be received by local basketball fans.

The next question for Noel was, what is next?

His reply, maybe another book, this time on Philippine football in the late 70s to the early 80s, the time he was active in sportswriting before he shifted to political writing.

That for him is his dream book.

But then for a basketball fan like me, I would be very happy already with this basketball book, and I would recommend it to serious basketball fans as well.

Unfortunately, it still will not be available in bookstores as Ray and Noel have not yet decided on that matter. Ray though will be convincing legislator friends of his to support the book by buying in bulk and give to their constituents or schools in their areas.

In closing, I reiterate, nothing happens by chance and because of this I had suddenly the subhect matter for today’s piece.

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