The 'New" Bernard Harris: Walking Tall with Crispa (Sports Weekly, 1979)

Sports Weekly Magazine

November 30-December 7, 1979

Peter N. Acosta

 

 

            He got in the Crispa lineup via a majority vote of all the players of the Pasig ballclub, winning handily over Norm Kelly of the Honda Wildcats, and in his first game with his new team, Bernard Harris, formerly of Tanduay, repaid his new teammates’ vote of confidence with a performance that showed he just might be what the doctor ordered as the replacement for the discredited Cyrus Mann.

 

            “I’m happy tonight,” said the Crispa Walk Tall Jeansmakers’ end-of-the-season acquisition whose first stint in the PBA was with the defunct Seven-Up ballclub in 1976 before he made the switch the following year to the Esquires.

 

            If Harris was happy, there was no doubt that the Crispa front office men – owner Danny Floro and Coach Baby Dalupan – were doubly more so.

 

 

 

            For in his first time with the Walk Tall team, Harris proved his awesome potential as Irv Chatman’s partner when he anchored Crispa to a 116-88 romp over the second conference champion, Royal Tru Orange.

 

            Aside from banging a game-high 31 points, Harris hauled down 22 rebounds and came through with three assists.

 

            But what made Harris’ debut with Crispa all the more remarkable was that he outrebounded the indomitable Otto Moore – 22 to 20 – and played so smoothly with a team whose play patterns he was unfamiliar with.

 

            And Harris admits that despite his crackerjack showing for Crispa against Royal, he felt he had not completely gotten into the swing of the Walk Tall Jeansmakers’ game.

 

            “I’m still trying to blend with the team,” he said, while all around him, his new teammates exulted on the way he had more than ably filled in for Mann, whose contract was rescinded by the Crispa management towards the end of the last PBA conference when it realized it could not get him – despite earnest efforts – to kick his old drug habit.

 

            Harris went on: “It takes a while to blend with a new team. Crispa has an entirely different style from Tanduay. Although both are running teams, I believe Crispa has a little more depth and a little more sock.”

           

            Asked if before Crispa’s game with Royal he received any specific instructions from Coach Dalupan, Harris smiled. “None really. No specific instructions.”

 

            So how was he able to perform so well against Otto Moore, Royal’s dominating slotman?

 

            “Oh that,” he said. “Well, I’ve always felt that to cut down Moore’s effectiveness in the rebounds, you’ve got to box him out. I think I did that tonight.”

 

            On the observation that he appeared to have improved on his field goal performance with Crispa, Harris attributed this to his being able “to take more outside shots with confidence…feeling more at ease taking such shots with Crispa.”

 

 

 

            Along with the veteran Gene Moore, Harris played for the first time with Tanduay in the 1977 second conference but he never finished the season when he suffered an arm injury when the Esquires took on the Toyota Tamaraws in an out of town game in Bacolod.

 

            Last year, it was David Payne who teamed up with Moore for Tanduay, thus Harris was not with the Esquires when they made the finals of the 1978 third conference.

 

            But this time around, things may be different for Harris.

 

            He figures to play in a title playoff – with Crispa.

 

            “I think that if we continue playing the way we did against Royal, we have a pretty good chance of making the finals,” he said.

 

            Asked if his joining Crispa came after long-drawn negotiations, Harris said, “it was not hard reaching a decision to play with Crispa.”

 

            “I understand the whole team voted for me,” he continued. “I can only hope I can keep up the kind of game I played tonight.”

 

            As to his future plans or specifically, if he’d consider to continue playing for Crispa, Harris said, “that depends, but first, we’ve got to talk.”

 

            In his 29-game stint with Tanduay in 1977, Harris averaged 24 points a game, hauled down 282 rebounds, had 22 shot blocks, averaged 47.14% from the field and 66.67% from the free throw line.

 

            In this year’s second conference, he raised his average to 26.62 points per game, was 11^th in the list of rebound leaders with an average of 12.4 rebounds per game, seventh in the list of shot block leaders with 2.4 blocks per game and logged 32 minutes and 26 seconds per game in playing time.

 

            Because Tanduay didn’t make the round of four, Harris sat out the homestretch part of the second conference race. But this time around, he figures to be there and not only there, but at the forefront of Crispa’s vaunted bid to regain a PBA conference championship it last won in 1976.

The Inside Story: Why Mann Got Dumped (Sports Weekly, 1979)

Sports Weekly Magazine

November 2-9, 1979

Peter N. Acosta

 

 

            It must have been an agonizing decision for Crispa owner and manager, Valeriano (Danny) Floro to make.

 

            The man, after all, has been as much a part of Crispa’s glory-filled year of 1976 as Atoy Co, Bogs Adornado, Philip Cezar and the rest of the team’s talented local performers who made possible the Redmanizers’ unequalled grand slam year in the PBA.

 

            But obviously left with no choice and spurred by the team and the company’s higher interest, Danny finally wielded last week the axe that cut off the celebrated Cyrus Mann from the Crispa ballclub and sent the 6’10 former star of Brazil’s Palmeiras team packing his bags for home.

 

            In an announcement that hardly caught by surprise those privy to the turmoil that had beset the Crispa team, Floro announced that the company had decided to rescind Mann’s playing contract which would have gone on to the third conference.

 

            He gave as the principal reason “the deterioration of Mann’s game,” which he said severely affected Crispa’s semifinal round performance and eventually cost the Redmanizers, winners of the 1979 PBA All-Filipino and a candidate for the grand slam, a berth in the best of five championship playoffs of the second conference.

 

            Breaking his silence for the first time on how things have gone between Mann and the rest of the team since the decline in Mann’s playing condition and ability began to drag down the whole team and all but rendered Crispa a single-import team, Floro said.

 

            “Even before our crucial game with Royal Tru Orange, our players had appealed to us not to field Mann but we still gave him a chance despite this.

 

            The “crucial game” of which Floro spoke was Crispa’s second round game in the double round semis which the Redmanizers needed to win to at least earn a tie for a finals berth.

 

 

 

            But the Redmanizers lost that game, 110-101, and earlier, another crucial encounter with the Toyota Tamaraws whose conquest of RTO last Saturday ultimately gave the Tams the last finals berth while at the same time leaving the Redmanizers out in the cold in the title playoffs for this tournament where they were runner-up last year.

 

            In the game which they lost to Toyota, Mann was only able to contribute six points and three rebounds and was hardly a match for Otto Moore in the battle of rebounds.

 

            In its last semifinal round game with Great Taste, Crispa dispensed with the services of Mann, who, significantly, is listed in the elimination round records as the leader in shot blocks with 73 for 15 games or an average of 4.9 blocks per game.

 

            But although Floro revealed the principal reason for Mann’s ouster from the team, he chose to remain silent on what caused this once dominating figure in the PBA to decline.

 

            From sources inside the Crispa camp, however, SWM learned that even before he had a run-in with his teammates, Mann had been missing a lot of practice games. On the day before Crispa played RTO, SWM learned that Mann refused to jog around the hardcourt when ordered. A confrontation with Coach Baby Dalupan ensued, at the height of which Mann walked out.

 

            SWM’s sources said that repeatedly, Mann had been asked to get into shape, to train, but he repeatedly hedged and gave excuses as well as assurance that he’s fine.

 

            His performance in the semis, however, showed otherwise.

 

            As to what apparently led to the decline in Mann’s condition and his interest to play 100 percent all the time, SWM sources learned one probable reason for this is Mann’s having gone again into the dangerous “habit” which he had embraced in the United States and which many felt was responsible for the delay in his acceptance of Crispa’s invitation for him to play another season with the Redmanizers.

 

            “He just can’t kick that old habit of his,” said one Crispa insider.

Home are the Redmanizers (Sports Weekly, 1979)

Sports Weekly Magazine

July 13-20, 1979

On the Line, Vic Villafranca

 

            As with all homecomings, Crispa’s return last Saturday to the PBA winner’s circle after being out of it for more than a year was good, old-fashioned sob opera.

 

            Outside the Big Dome following the Redmanizers’ pressure-ridden 118-111 decision over Toyota in the there’s-no-tomorrow, sudden death, fifth match of the playoffs for the 1979 PBA All-Filipino championship, the rains of departing typhoon Gening fell in sheets.

 

            But inside the Coliseum, the scene was just as watery as an ecstatic, virtually delirious Redmanizer bunch, from team manager Valeriano (Danny) Floro to relief slotman Jimmy Javier, let it all hang out, let the tears and the sobs break loose, let the glare of the TV lights dance on their tear-speckled cheeks in an emotion-packed final drama that marked Crispa’s comeback as a PBA champ.

 

            For those who caught the spectacle on their TV sets, the whole thing must have seemed like one big tearjerker as men deemed too old to cry in public choked, babbled and then broke down in torrents of tears as the impact of the long-awaited moment hit them flush between the breast bones and reduced a bunch of grown-up boys into a clutch of hopelessly sobbing boys.

 

            One unforgettable sight of the post-game drama that climaxed Crispa’s successful campaign for a title after a string of four frustrating attempts was that of Danny Floro sobbing uncontrollably live and in color when asked to say how he felt about Crispa’s comeback to the top of a PBA tournament.

 

            “This is not the first time,” said a visibly emotion-ridden Danny, trying to brush away the tears from his chubby cheeks, “but this is very important. I dedicate this to my father and mother.”

 

            For a man whose ballclub may be said to have everything by way of PBA feats, including a rare grand slam conquest in 1976, this choking statement of Danny must have come as a surprise until the man himself explained why.

 

 

 

            “They thought Crispa will never win again,” Danny said, trying to duck the klieg lamps that were beginning to highlight the gush of tears on his cheeks. They thought we are losing games…ngayon, wala na siguro silang masasabi.”

 

            On that last tearful point which he stressed, Danny probably is right: with what they showed in the game that mattered the most in the down-the-wire race for this year’s prestigious All-Filipino title of the PBA, the Redmanizers may have ended once and for all whatever growing misgivings the public may have entertained about the team’s will to win.

 

            And like the public, the nagging doubt inferred by Crispa’s grand old man himself, Don Pablo Floro, who had said once that if there was one thing he’d like to see is a Redmanizer win. “Win…I’d like to see you win,” Don Pablo told Danny, and last Saturday, it was a team hell bent on winning despite the odds that Don Pablo saw as the Redmanizers shook off the numbing after shock of a fourth game loss that tied the playoff series at 2-2 to pull off a tension-packed homestretch triumph over the fired-up Tamaraws of Toyota.

 

            The winner of the first game of the best of five playoffs by a whopping 15 points, the Redmanizers had lost the second game, 121-114, but then had come back in the tough third game to win, 112-109, and moved to only a victory shy of taking their first PBA championship in four conferences.

 

            But they never made it as a back-against-the-wall Toyota ballclub came through with the clutch hits in Game 4 while the Redmanizers, notably Atoy Co and Freddie Hubalde, were choking on theirs, to win by eight points, 118 to 110, and hurl the playoffs all the way down to sudden-death fifth encounter.

 

            It undoubtedly was this loss in a pivotal match that sent the Crispa camp into a crisis, spawned all the ugly talk that there was more than met the eye in the Redmanizers’ defeat in Game 4, or as Danny himself said, “pati raw ako, nagbebenta ng laro.”

 

            Under the circumstances, it seemed that it was more than a conference title that was at stake for Crispa in the fifth playdate of the playoffs. More than a championship, what Crispa stood to regain in Game 5 was the public’s confidence and that of the ballclub’s owner.

 

            Undoubtedly, the team got both last Saturday as it went flat-out all the way – “Bagsak na, lumalaban pa,” Coach Dalupan was to say later – to turn back a constantly pressing Toyota outfit and score a victory that came off a display of true grit basketball in the closing minutes of the last quarter.

 

            Jarred right off by a quick Toyota getaway that sent them eight points down in the first quarter, the Redmanizers barreled down with an 8-0 blitz late in the period to cut Toyota’s edge to one at 29-28. The period ended with Toyota up by three, 35-32, but early in the second, Crispa spurted ahead for the first time at 40-39 on an 8-4 blast touched off by Abet Guidaben.

 

            It was, however, a short-lived fling out front for Crispa. Ramon Fernandez, playing the heads-up game that has made him the leading candidate for MVP in all serious form charts, grabbed the lead back for Toyota at 41-40, and from here, the lead swung back and forth before Crispa uncorked a 9-0 binge that enabled it to take the half by 5, 63-58.

 

            Early in the third, Emer Legaspi and rookie Arnie Tuadles triggered off an 8-0 Toyota rally that enabled the Tams to one up, 69-68, on Crispa. But just as quickly, Freddie Hubalde almost single-handedly came through with a comeback thrust that sent the Redmanizers back on top.

 

            In this period, Crispa got into a seven-team-foul bind with five minutes left but the Tamaraws were unable to cash in heavily on it – the end of the third showing Toyota still down by three, 89-86.

 

            Bong Dela Cruz and Guidaben upped this edge to seven on a pair of quick hits early in the fourth, but three minutes later, the Redmanizers found themselves down by one as Tuadles, Francis Arnaiz and Nick Bulaong put together an unanswered string of four field goals.

 

            It looked like Toyota was on its way. But with Sonny Jaworski and Arnaiz saddled with five fouls apiece and likewise the team’s power rebounder, Abe King, one doubted how the Tams could push their bid for a turnaround all the way.

 

 

 

            True enough, when Jaworski glumly followed Abe King to the sidelines after incurring his sixth foul with Toyota still up by one, 107-106, Crispa had the break it needed to break the Tams.

 

            It was Freddie Hubalde who started it all – the 10-point Crispa assault that would eventually spell Toyota’s doom. Scoring on a jumper, Hubalde sent Crispa back on top, 108-107, and when, after Freddie fouled out, Atoy Co and Philip Cezar banged in eight points on two successful three-point plays and a field goal, the cue was there for the Crispa partisans to unfurl a streamer which read, “Crispa Redmanizers, 1979 PBA All-Filipino Conference Champions.”

 

            Crispa’s last field goal was made by Bogs Adornado on a long pass from Philip Cezar and it seemed a fitting capstone to Adornado’s scintillating performance for the evening which, as his 20-point accomplishment showed, could only mean that like his ballclub, the comebacking Adornado had also made it all the way to the mountaintop.

 

            Summing up the factors that led to Crispa’s triumph, a drained Coach Dalupan said, “we were the lucky team.”

 

            For his part, the losing coach, Fort Acuña said, “The fouls got us.”

 

            The way Acuña said that, it would seem as if like just about everybody in the Crispa camp, Fort had all the reasons to also cry.

 

            For whatever it is worth, here’s a rundown on how the guys who went out on a limb with forecasts on the probable windup of the Toyota-Crispa playoffs for the PBA All-Filipino made out:

           

            Tito Eduque, Joe Quirino and Recah Trinidad, all of whom opted for Crispa, hit it right on the nose and thus may now remove the grocery bags from their heads.

 

            Billy Robinson, who said it will be Toyota, and TV basketball analyst Rizal Marte, who was cornered by Emy Arcilla into also going for Toyota, both bombed out and will probably be ducking JQ in the weeks to come.

 

            As to how this corner made out, the back files of SWM said Crispa it was whom we said will take all the marbles in the All-Filipino and Crispa it was that did just that. Not that we wanted to crow, but just to serve notice to some guys who said we’re nuts to go for Crispa that we intend to grow fat and sassy with all the dinner bets they’ve lost.

No Records for Dalupan (Sports Weekly, 1976)

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.

That's the Way Crispa Likes It (Sports Weekly, 1976)

Sports Weekly Magazine

September 24-October 1, 1976

Bitoy Bonifacio

 

 

            The man least concerned about the reports of renewed troubled supposedly rocking the Crispa team is the team owner himself.

 

            After going over anti-Crispa stories earlier in the week, Danny Floro smiled amusedly, leaned on his soft office chair and stroked his happy belly.

 

            “I don’t know where they have been getting all these stories,” Floro said. “I am amused. Nakakatuwa. I should be the first one to know if there is really alarming trouble in the team.”

 

The latest anti-Crispa line came from Tony Siddayao, a close friend of Toyota team owner Dante Silverio. Siddayao reported: “They (the Denims) are in miserable shape physically, chiefly because of a reluctance to put some effort in their training and because of depressed morale.”

 

            A seasoned campaigner, Floro has more than gotten used to all these.

 

            He said: “It’s very likely that we would again encounter minor problems along the way, but that’s just normal. I don’t see any reason why I should be overly concerned about this. We have bigger things to tackle.”

 

 

 

            What Floro is proud about is his players’ ability to patch up their own problems, which obviously has been part of the Crispa formula for success. Sportswriter Recah Trinidad was direct to the point when he commented: “If it has to be another Crispa show, then expect the Denims to encounter rough sailing, plod through dissensions and petty squabbles. It would be terribly un-Crispalike if they would clinch another major title trouble-free. Problems seem to be a major ingredient in the Crispa formula for success, the players changing inexplicably from mediocre to superb overnight.”

 

            Crispa is a team known for its practical promptness. Coach Baby Dalupan’s cagers have always made it a point to be at peak form at championship time, never ahead of schedule.

 

            “I don’t know how coach Dalupan does it,” Floro said. “But I myself believe that a team should never be at its best too early in the league.”

 

            If Crispa encountered any considerable trouble at all in the current PBA Open, it has been with Cyrus Mann.

 

            “You see after Mann kept on returning to the US, the other players got bothered. They were not sure if Mann liked to play with us or not.”

 

            “But that, I believe, has all been solved” said Floro. “He (Mann) has vowed to cooperate. He has been working out regularly. Nakikipagbiruan pa sa mga players.”

 

 

 

            What are the chances of Crispa in the current PBA series?

 

            “I am quite confident we will make it to the round of four,” Floro said. “the other teams that will make it are Toyota and U/Tex. The fourth qualifier is still a big question mark. Kung sino ang swertihin.”

 

            Will it be another Crispa-Toyota championship duel?

 

            “You never can tell, it’s hard to tell,” Floro said.

 

            Problems? Floro continues to be amused about the reports of team troubles.

 

            “At least, I will have something to talk about with the boys,” the bright-faced Crispa team owner laughed.