Filed under: Sportscenter
“So, what’s your favorite moment in sports?”
The willowy La Salle student, a mass communication major who moonlights as a varsity for her school’s volleyball squad, asked me.
Her friend, who was filming the interview, sat beside her, eyes round in anticipation for the answer.
I took a sip from a large cup containing iced white chocolate, leaned against one of those cushioned chairs in the corner coffee shop near my place and fell into a wonderful wave of reminiscing.
“Well,” I said. “There are a lot, I don’t know where to start, really. Are you sure you have enough memory space on your camcorder for this?”
The two students, who earlier sought this appointment to interview me for a school project, nodded in unison, almost hypnotically, as if they were expecting me to retell the time I rode a Space Shuttle and joined a NASA expedition to Mars.
But hey, there was nothing that spectacular about my job as a sportswriter.
Still, the moments that leave your hair bristling are a-plenty.
“For starters, how about seeing my byline for the first time,” I said, recalling a football tournament I covered for Today that carried my first-ever byline.
And then the words—and the memories—flowed out of my mouth freely and in rapid succession, it seemed that I no longer felt the need to breathe.
“There is no one moment, really, but a garage-full of snapshots that I can sift through endlessly and not be able to come up with a definitive favorite.
“It is watching Tiger Woods up close, ripping a drive on the first tee of the Mimosa golf course and then listen to him give tips to young kids fortunate enough to get handpicked for a rare event; it is watching the smile on those kids faces as he takes their hands and adjusts their swing.
“It is sitting across Kobe Bryant and listening him tell a funny story about escaping his bodyguards and going for a stroll in Glorietta, getting away incognito until he went inside a TGIF restaurant and somebody screamed, ‘Kobe!’ and then holing himself up in that joint until his bodyguards rescued him from the crowd that built up outside.
“It is listening to Grant Hill talk and realizing athletes are more than just dumb jocks; It is watching Shaquille O’Neal lift Johnny Abarrientos up for a slam dunk in an exhibition game and then listening to him rap while his massive hand patted my shoulder.
“It is going one-on-one with T-Mac in a secluded interview room and then listening to him speak wistfully aboutn his early dreams of playing for the New York Yankees.
“It is coming up close and personal to the likes of Batista and Mick Foley and wondering if you’re going to ask a question that’s going to piss them off and do a routine backbreaker on you.
“And it isn’t even purely about getting to meet these foreign stars who come to visit the country.
“It’s also about sitting beside Efren ‘Bata’ Reyes while he cracks jokes about Django Bustamante in an impromptu commentator act that sounded more like a stand-up comedy routine.
“Or watching Bal David curl through a series of picks and nailing the winning shot that reduces a giant like Asi Taulava to tears.
“It is talking to a breast cancer survivor and listening how she braved the odds to win gold medals in a rowing competition in Singapore.
“It is sitting down in a beer joint with Mon Fernandez, who you never saw play but idolized so hard as a teenager obsessed with hoops. And then telling stories about the time he used to dribble down the court with the grace and elegance of a guard and dishing off behind-the-back passes.
“It is watching an entire coliseum erupt in a thunderous cheer as Ginebra breaks a title-drought. Or watching Danny Seigle soar to the hoop. Or watching Danny Ildefonso stuff home a jam. Or falling off your chair as Mike Cortez issues a pin-point assist.
“It is sitting under the graying sky with a female footballer on the eve of her departure to Europe, where she hopes to make a mark for herself and open the doors for the country’s booters in that part of the world, also known as football heaven.
“It is standing in a dusty corner of a creaky coliseum in some far-flung rural province in Malaysia, watching a group of rag-tag Pinoy cagers bringing smiles to a handful of OFW’s who saved up phone card money just to watch them play, never mind how obscure their names were, so obscure that the two names that came out of that squad were Air21 swingman Gary David and PBL coach Caloy Garcia.
I stop to finally take a breath.
“It is flying to Bangkok and covering the Asian Games for the first time as a 22-year-old and trying to beat deadlines surrounded by grizzled veterans of Philippine sports journalism.
“It is watching Manny Pacquiao practice an evasive move pinned against the ropes in an airy gym in Hollywood and then watching him actually use the technique to floor Erik Morales in Las Vegas.
“It is flying to South Korea and numbing your tongue with kimchi and talking to Mikee Cojuangco and staring at those eyes and realizing that oh yes, they really drown you and force you to suck in air in panicky gulps And then, just when you think its safe to stare at her again because your heartbeat’s stable and your breathing’s on a regular pace, she smiles and you hyperventilate.
“It is answering a phone call and realizing it’s Paeng Nepumuceno on the other end of the line, thanking you for an article you wrote about him.
“It’s sitting at the baseline of the Araneta Coliseum hardcourt and watching the UST Tigers—those beloved UST Tigers—win an improbable UAAP title.
“It’s receiving a thank-you text message from Alvin Patrimonio who, two seconds after you’ve read the text, calls you to say thank you again for something as simple as writing an article about him.
“Okay, sir,” the La Salle student says. “I think we get the point.”
Being… This is sports. This is a million snapshots that blow by you and make your heartbeat race for several reasons that its hard to choose what your favorite moment is. This is reality TV at its best.
For every high moment, there will be those that make you feel like OD-ing on rat poison, like the time I watched Lee Sang Min bury that dagger of a triple that took the Philippines out of an Asian Games final showdown with basketball powerhouse China.
But hey… I wouldn’t trade all the heartaches for any other job in the world. Not even one that entails riding a Space Shuttle and joining a NASA expedition to Mars.
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
