SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
If you followed your history, he didn’t bring a basketball but five-star United States army general Douglas McArthur did return to the Philippines during World War II.
Besides, there weren’t any basketballs or other sports back there in those days, but considering about some 100 million people living in the Philippines, it was basketball that grew up with them.
“Well, that’s safe to say, it’s close,” said Tim Cone, the country’s top professional basketball coach.
Close enough now to rank the Philippines up there in the popular world of hoops. Yes, that’s its game and it will gain plenty of points for the sports’ World Cup that has landed in its land.
Now basketball will spread out over three countries — the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia — and it will be centered In Manila, where the medal rounds will be held in early September.
And Manila is where the favored United States team will play all its games in the event, and where fans have been waiting for years for this chance at seeing some of the game’s biggest names competing in their cities.
“For us, it’s like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Inigo Herrera, 25, who works in sales for his family’s Manila business.
“If this is your first time in the Philippines and you go around, you will see kids playing basketball everywhere, yes everywhere.”
True, for this nation has basketball courts indoors, outdoors, it plays hoops in backyards for both youngsters and older folks that love the game.
The Americans arrived Monday night in Manila. They were greeted by local and tournament officials at the airport, had fans on motorcycles waving at the motorcade as their buses drove away, and were greeted by at their hotel by more fans.
Herrera was among those who stood in the lobby for just a glimpse of the Americans.
“I have goosebumps right now,” said one of Herrera’s friends, RJ Tan, as he held an Anthony Edwards jersey. And yes he did have goosebumps even several minutes after.
It was all something special as the Americans walked past him and Herrera and the other fans to get to the elevators leading to their rooms after about 10 hours of flying from Abu Dhabi.
The home nation — which has declared Friday a national holiday of sorts, close schools and some businesses to mark the occasion — is in the prestigious World Cup and has its sights on history.
While there is little chance of a magical run by the Philippines to win the tournament, there is an effort to get at least 32,617 fans to the Philippines first game and break the World Cup attendance record set in Toronto in 1994 when the U.S. rolled past Russia in the gold medal game.
“I had the good fortune of visiting Manila in 1996,” said U.S. men’s national basketball team managing director Grant Hill. “The love for the game there is absolutely incredible.”
FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis was asked last week about the excitement level the Philippines have shown for the World Cup.
His response was, you have no seen anything yet.
Basketball is a passion in the Philippines. There are about 25,000 indoor courts in the country, countless outdoor courts are everywhere with rims even fashioned out of barbed wire in some places.
Data collected by the National Basketball Association show the league’s online store can send deliveries to 215 cities and provinces in the Philippines.
And there isn’t one place on that list where the league hasn’t had someone buy a jersey or some other official merchandise.
It is the No. 1 sport in the nation and you can’t definitely say that about basketball in the United States or anywhere else,” said Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra, an assistant on the U.S. team this summer and a national hero in the Philippines.
His mother is Filipina, she, too has such great passion for the sport, and her son Erik has flown into Manila with his staff and some of his friends, and on a ride from the airport he said anywhere you looked you can see groups of kids playing on a makeshift basketball on a telephone pole, on the side of a building, in three feet of rainwater.
Legend says American teachers brought basketballs to the Philippines for the first time around the turn of the 20th century and it immediately took off.
Unlike other parts of Asia, where baseball or soccer can reign supreme, basketball stands alone in the Philippines, with the only real challenge in recent years being boxing.
Said Cone: “People are raised on basketball from let’s say the age of 2 and 3 years old,” who has won more than two dozen league titles.
How’s this, if New York’s heartbeat of outdoor basketball is Rucker Park, then Manila’s is Tenement Court.
There are 32 teams in the World Cup and half will play their first and second round games in Manila while eight teams will play first in Jakarta and eight others will open in Okinawa.
For the final week of the tournament, all the title contenders will be in Manila and the gold medal game happens there Sept. 10.
It will be a moment of national pride regardless of who wins.
“Very big event for us,” Cone said, “yes, the country, the whole country.”
