UNIVERSITY of Cebu Law Dean Baldomero Estenzo has been waging a lonesome fight against the practice of allowing “imports” to play in collegiate basketball leagues. When his team hired a new coach and prepared to join the ranks of schools that recruited players from other countries, he promptly resigned as team manager, citing differences in basketball philosophy.
Estenzo’s philosophy is simple: for every foreign player that a school hires, a Filipino is deprived of the opportunity to acquire decent education through an athletic scholarship and besides, the presence of foreign players stunt the development of the locals. But his was a voice in the wilderness; the Cesafi, which is the premier collegiate athletic association in Cebu, refused to listen to him.
In fairness to Cebu school owners, they did not start the practice of hiring foreigners, mostly Africans, to play for their teams. Schools like Dela Salle, Ateneo de Manila, University of the Philippines, San Beda and other members of both the Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) and the National Collegiate Association (NCAA) have had foreigners in their roster long before Cesafi squads started bringing in foreigners to boost their competitiveness.
These foreigners cost money. Aside from board and lodging, they get hefty allowances from their teams, and their agents/recruiters do not charge loose change as commission. Estenzo disliked the idea of turning mercenaries instead of sportsmen out of collegiate athletes and when new UC coach Raul Alcoseba made known his intention to go the way of SWU, UV, USJ-R and USC, which all played with foreigners on their teams in the last season, he quit as team manager.
Estenzo played for the University of San Carlos Warriors in the sixties and then went to the University of the Philippines for his law degree. He was a constant presence during the entire period of my own involvement with collegiate basketball in Cebu. I cannot count the number of times our teams (I was UV team manager) played against each other. I admired them even when they lost.
His teams may not have had as many championships as he would have wished but his players were among the best disciplined I have seen. From his system emerged Junmar Fajardo, currently the best Filipino basketball player. But what I remember is not the Junmar, who has won successive MVP awards in the PBA, but the giant of a man who sought us out to apologize after the ball he and his teammates were practicing with rolled into our path at the Cebu City Sports oval. This man mountain has manners and I credit Estenzo for that.
Why am writing about Estenzo? Because he is not a Don Quixote fighting the windmills anymore. I read in Philippine Star yesterday that the NCAA has imposed a ban on foreign athletes starting next year, not just in basketball but in all sports.
Let me quote the Star report on the reason for the disallowance:
“For many, the presence of foreign players has stunted the growth and development of local big men with coaches preferring to use the foreigners instead of the locals to boost their respective campaigns.”
This is what Estenzo has been saying along. Will the Cesafi finally listen to him?