Sports Weekly Magazine
December 23-30, 1977
Vic Villafranca
IT had been a long, agonizing trip back to the mountaintop.
The last time they were there was two years and 28 days ago, on November 20, 1975, when they upended their arch rivals, the Crispa Redmanizers, 115-102, in the third game of their best of three pennant playoffs to make it two conference titles in a row in the maiden year of the PBA.
After those two intoxicating stints as PBA champs, however, a feat which placed them in the vantage position of scoring the league’s first grand slam, things went downhill for Dante Silverio and his glamourous Toyota Tamaraws.
The skid began in the 1975 season’s third conference when, after figuring in a 2-2 tie with Crispa in a best of five title series, they lost the deciding game, 96 to 91.
With that setback went Toyota’s dreams of a first ever grand slam in the local pro basketball circuit, a dream which, in the second year, would turn into a nightmare as the Tamaraws went through the agony of three title showdowns without emerging as a winner in any one of them.
In the 1976 first conference, they lost, 3-1, to the Redmanizers. In the second conference, it was the same story as Crispa own the first two games of the playoffs, lost the third and then came back strong in the fourth game to win, three games to one.
In the third conference, the Tamaraws looked as if they’ve got it made in their bid to break Crispa’s design for a grand slam when they won the first two games of the playoffs, 110-90, and 118-117, and moved to only a win away from the championship.
But then, unexplainably, incredibly, they got skulled three times in a row by the back-against-the-wall Redmanizers, and a season which could at least have ended on a joyous note for Toyota turned into a bitter, empty year.
“That was a bad year,” conceded a Toyota team official, “a real nightmare.”
If ’76 was bad for Toyota, however, the first three quarters of this year’s PBA season was worse for the Tamaraws as two times, in the first and second conferences of the PBA, they missed the bus to the finals.
In both conferences, they suffered the ignominy of merely being a sidelines spectator as two other teams – the Mariwasa Hondas in the first conference and the U/Tex Wranglers in the second – tried but failed to put an end to Crispa’s title winning streak.
Twice though, the Tamaraws won their third-place playoffs – against the Tanduay Esquires in the first conference and against the Seven-Up Uncolas in the second.
After finishing first in the league twice and second five times, those two third place finishes had certainly been a terrible comedown for the Tamaraws.
It was enough to send a man up against the wall but surprisingly, there was no hint of despair nor resignation in the way Toyota Coach Dante Silverio took the string of setbacks.
As he told Sports Weekly once: “Sing no sad songs for the boys. They may be down today but they will never be out.”
Dante said this in the gloom of the Toyota dugout after his ballclub had muffed its chances of being in the second conference finals with a painful setback to Crispa in a sudden-death playoff held to decide U/Tex’s opponent for the title.
Turning his thoughts to the third and last conference of the PBA for the year, Dante vowed, “Don’t worry, we’ll be back.”
And back indeed, the Tamaraws went, and not only back, but back with a vengeance, as they fiercely fought their way back to prominence in the PBA.
The first team to feel the sting of Toyota’s surge back to pennant contention was Presto which the Tamaraws mangled, 167 to 134. After Presto came the fast-starting Tanduay Esquires whom they stopped, 122-114.
Then it was time for their middle of the qualifying round date with the Crispa Redmanizers. Like Toyota holder of a 2-0 win-loss record when they went in to their match with their arch rivals, the Redmanizers never stood a chance against the Tams’ new-found firepower and walked off the hardcourt a loser by nine points, 117-108.
For their fourth win, the Tams crushed U/Tex, 131-114. For win no. 5, they pulled an overtime win over the unpredictable Mariwasa Hondas, 143-139.
Up against the visiting Brazilians in their sixth game in the elims, the Tams lost, 127-106, but a 134-126 win over the other foreign team in the series, the Australian Panthers, and they had it wrapped up – their first trip to the finals since December of ’76.
For their pennant playoff opponent, the Tams drew the only team to emerge from the elims with a clean 7-0 slate – the Emtex Sacronels of Brazil – and the Tams could not have chosen a more tortuous way back to the mountaintop than the route offered via a decision over the tall and heavy Brazilians.
“This is going to be tough,” said a grim Coach Silverio on the eve of Toyota’s first match with the Brazilians in a best of five series for the title. Bu the way his boys played against the Brazilians the next day, people got the impression that Dante might have spoken too soon.
Playing, as Seven-Up Coach and basketball analyst Lauro Mumar put it, “like a team that can’t do anything wrong,” the Tams led the Brazilians by as much as 20 points at one point in the game to coast to a 115-99 triumph at the windup.
In game no. 2, the Brazilians bounced back as if determined to make up for the humiliating first game setback but they lost their wind in the fourth quarter to enable Toyota to escape with a five-point, 113-108 win.
Thus, was the stage set for Toyota’s re-entry into a world which had eluded it over the past two years – the dazzling world of a PBA champion.
Sunday, December 16, the Tamaraws grandly swept back into that world as they ravaged the Brazilians by a smothering 21 points, 129-108 to tuck away the third conference title before a whopping turnout of 7,000 at the Loyola Center in Quezon City.
It was Toyota’s 9th win in 10 games in the series and its third straight over the Brazilians in the playoffs. By taking the title on a sweep, the Tams gave future champs of the PBA an awesome record to shoot at for until the Tams of the third conference came along, no team in the league had accomplished Dante Silverio’s boys pulled off Sunday night.
If only on account of the manner the Tams bounced back on top of the league, the long wait for a title could have been worth all those frustrations and empty nights that had been the lot of Toyota since November of ’75.
“We finally made it,” said a deliriously happy Coach Silverio amid the New Year’s Eve atmosphere of the Toyota dressing room after the game. “We really tried hard, not only tonight but all throughout the conference.”
Forthwith, Silverio went into a round of back pats for the Tams who bore the brunt of Toyota’s successful campaign for the third conference title – Sonny Jaworski, Francis Arnaiz, Ramon Fernandez, John Irving and Bruce King.
Said Silverio, “Jaworski, Fernandez and Arnaiz have regained their forms totally and were great supplements to Irving and King, without whom our championship would not have been possible.”
But isn’t he forgetting somebody equally important? A newsman wanted to know.
“Who?” Silverio said, suddenly looking worried.
“The coach, that’s who,” said the newsman, and indeed, looking back, Dante deserves to join his stars up there on centerstage as they take their bows if only for the way he brought the Tamaraws out of the depths of the 1977 PBA season and back to the spotlight.