E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
‘Let the dice roll’
Thursday, 09 13, 2007
That was the retort of basketball coach Joe Lipa when word spread about his impending ouster in the face of the woeful campaign of the University of the Philippines (UP) Fighting Maroons in the ongoing UAAP basketball wars.
Well, that’s as good a retort as any, but it just doesn’t sound like the Fighting Joe everyone knows during his halcyon brawling days: full of spunk and grit, not averse to mouthing off a blue streak of invectives which somehow sound inoffensive because of his unique habit of juggling words.
But, “Let the dice roll?”
UP’s final game on Saturday will have the Maroons going for a win against Adamson. It goes without saying they will be very focused in that game, knowing there’d be no second chances. They are as ready as they could ever be; nothing could make them lose — except, perhaps, the perverse intervention of Lady Luck or Charlie Chance.
So, what the heck! As Caesar said when he crossed the Rubicon, “Jacta alea est.” “The die is cast.” Now, that, I think, is just about the most quoted line about dice. Once the dice is thrown, that is irreversible, and there’s no way one can control which spots will turn up. Caesar and his troops realized that when they crossed the river — so, they went ahead and won the war, albeit after three years.
Two years ago, Lipa, coach of the 1986 UP champion team in the UAAP, was called back by UP from retirement, to form a team that would reprise 1986 in 2008, the centennial of the UP.
Between lucrative offers from other basketball groups and the call to serve his Alma Mater once more for a pittance, Lipa chose the latter. But like what the legendary military commander found out — he was plucked out of retirement to save a nation, only to be unceremoniously replaced on the eve of victory in order that credit may be given to another — that is how many see the way Lipa is now being treated.
Tito Talao of the Bulletin bemoaned: “Facing the ignominy of a shutout season, Lipa has been virtually spat on and kicked while down and out, a surprising gesture toward a man who holds the distinction of leading an all-amateur national team to a bronze medal finish in the Asian Games 21 years ago.”
A handshake was all it took to seal the deal between Lipa and UP. No fancy legal documents, where you need a thesaurus to understand the fine print. And like many agreements of this kind, it is prone to violations by third parties who know not the word “honor;” who only know the word “opportunism.”
Lipa started from scratch. With his eye for talent — the same eye that in 1984 saw the talent in players such as Altamirano, Paras, Magsanoc, Cruz and Dandan — Lipa cobbled in 2006 a team of teenagers who showed much promise. In the first year alone of the rebuilding regimen Lipa charted, four of his players were in contention for Rookie of the Year, with one of them, Woody Co, snaring the honor. That speaks well of Lipa.
Anyone who knows his basketball will tell you that it takes time for the best hands to find their range and jell as a team. Victories on the hardcourt is not a slam dunk, so to speak. Impatience for a Maroons’ victory appears to have impelled some to ask for Lipa’s neck. At least that’s what Lipa’s detractors are floating.
But wait. A parrot told me two reasons for the move to oust Lipa. One: a member of a group claiming to have a franchise over UP’s basketball program has a moist eye on the coaching job, after having been rebuffed by a professional team. Two: a group that has corralled the refereeing assignments is determined to make the UAAP a veritable playing field for games with predictable results.
If a new coach takes over in 2008 and sticks to the team that Lipa has formed, he will doubtless have an easy time with a tailor-made championship-caliber team. A drastic tinkering with the team’s composition would be a prescription for disaster at a time when UP would be hosting the league. Either way, commission of one or omission of the other is a shabby way of treating a basketball icon like Lipa.
Everybody knows Lipa to be a no-nonsense coach who knows a fixed player and a fixed referee when he sees one. Remember the PBA many years back, when he was coach of Shell? Instances of game-fixing prompted him to ask the Senate for an investigation in aid of legislation, just so the professional league would be rid of fixers.
Lipa, should he continue to coach in 2008, is expected to exercise the prerogative of the host university (which UP will be) to cleanse the ranks of the officiating pool. Ateneo, the host in 2009, and NU in 2010, are disposed to following UP’s lead. That explains it: Lipa must not be around to initiate reforms.
Lipa is too much of a gentleman to be fighting for a job that is the envy of vultures. He will give in anytime, like when he left Ateneo after putting in place a rebuilding program for the Blue Eagles. But well-meaning UP alumni, such as Fine Arts Dean Gini Dandan and basketball great Sieg Guerrero, deplore the underhanded tactics of some who, while not even offering to give a cent to support the Maroons, have the temerity to demand too much too soon. And Lipa is their convenient scapegoat.
Talao says Lipa’s fate now rests in the hands of men of character and high moral values, upon whom he placed absolute faith when they came seeking his services, when UP badly needed him.
Lipa can’t ask for a better deal under the circumstances, the roll of the dice notwithstanding. Pongala-ngala.
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