Sports Weekly Magazine
November 19-26, 1976
Bitoy Bonifacio
This year will wind up as one of the most fruitful for coach Baby Dalupan, but the cunning Crispa team mentor would be looking back at 1976 with diminished fondness.
Dalupan actually has a lot to cheer about. There is the second straight NCAA basketball crown he helped win for Ateneo last month, the PBA All-Filipino title and the expected (at this reporting) PBA Open Conference plum. But despite all, Dalupan is likely to shake his seasoned head when he reminisces about year 1976. It is a year of near-misses – at big basketball records.
Dalupan failed to keep a date with basketball history when he missed scoring an unprecedented 14-game sweep of the NCAA basketball series by a hairline (no thanks to eventual runner-up San Beda); then last Tuesday, he again failed at a record try when Toyota coach Dante Silverio prevented him from achieving what could have been the first ever three-game sweep of a PBA best-of-five title series.
So, 1976 will go down as just another year for Dalupan who has been so used to clinching crowns, although often the hard way.
However, this is also likely to be an all-revealing year for Dalupan as far as the Crispa lineup is concerned. He is more convinced now that the Redmanizers will always be the Redmanizers. They can’t be expected to clinch, try their best, whenever the odds are on them.
Fighting hard all the way once favored would be terribly un-Crispa-like. Or winning a major crown trouble-free, for that matter.
In their quest for a third straight PBA title alone, Dalupan had to patch up a series of team troubles – with fatherly backing of Don Pablo Floro and son Danny Floro, Crispa team manager – in order to maintain their status as the country’s number one ballclub. First, there was the problem with Cyrus Mann, the prodigious team pillar – who, at the earlier stage of his stint here, had refused to stay put, travelled back and forth to the United States, while his teammates were left doubting about his worth and intentions. Fed up, Dalupan gave Mann an ultimatum – stay put or pack up and go home. Mann, roused to his right pro basketball senses, is definitely playing one of the finest seasons of his young career.
Similarly challenging was the overly-publicized team troubles, which had threatened to go out of hand. Dalupan insisted on his own way, and the problem was promptly resolved.
William Adornado, his skipper and most reliable point-producer, injured his knee. This could have proved crippling had it happened to a lesser team and to a lesser coach. But Dalupan solved the Adornado problem when he fashioned out new plays – with emphasis on mobility and teammanship – to make Crispa doubly deadly at the clutches.
What Dalupan would not however get rid of is the often suspiciously, lethargic performance of his mainstays whenever the team plays an overwhelming favorite.
What’s commendable about Dalupan is that, despite the troubles, and his countless titles, he has also grown into a good loser.
In their latest setback – in game number three of the PBA Open best-of-five series – Dalupan did not blame the referees, although there were some obviously stupid calls which had helped crippled their bid for a record sweep of the championship. He instead blamed the setback on his boys, which he said, failed to sustain their fierce pace.
“Lumamig na naman sa huli,” Dalupan explained amid funeral silence in the Crispa dugout.
Coach Dante Silverio, on the other hand, also had reasons to cry over officiating, but he overdid it when he blamed their two crucial setbacks in the finals on referees.
“We were playing against seven men,” complained the usually cool Silverio. “We could not win any game, no matter what, if the referees continue to pick on my boys.”
Sadly though, Silverio’s distrust for the referees had also affected his boys. They too became touchy on the floor, protesting every call – no matter what.
“Kailangan diyan (sa Toyota), magpatayo ng sarili nilang liga,” said a disenchanted sideliner.
They were not supposed to, but Toyota fans blamed the referees for the deterioration of Robert Jaworski’s temper in the series. A seasoned internationalist, and a top contender for the MVP award in the last All-Filipino series, Jaworski brought out anew some of his nasty amateur habits – barging his way with a karate kick, raking opponents with a fist, etc.
And once, as reported by Recah Trinidad in the Evening Express, he refused Bernard Fabiosa’s peace offer when the Crispa sentinel extended a friendly hand after the game.
“Siya na ang nanuntok, siya pa ang ayaw makipagkamay,” Fabiosa said of the Big J.
But enough of that. Back to the ballgame.
Crispa for the first time in the series, suddenly found itself sorely missing Bogs Adornado when the fabulous Redmanizer scoring machine cooled off, chug-chug-chugged in the closing quarter of Game 3.
Suddenly, the Redmanizers were in trouble again. But, unfortunately for Coach Silverio, a Redmanizer in trouble is terribly hard to contain.
