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Monday, February 16, 2004
Hall of fame inclusion caps Aquino’s career
WHEN the Cebu Sports Hall of Fame Committee adds Juan B. Aquino to its list of Hall of Famers on Feb. 20, along with fellow legends Thelma Paras-Datig, Manuel Baring, and Eugene dela Cerna, it will put a fitting crown on Aquino’s long, dignified career as a sportsman who made an immense contribution to the glory and growth of the local basketball program.
Aquino, currently the Basketball Association of the Philippines (BAP)- Visayas vice president, was a phenomenal basketball coach who snared collegiate and commercial basketball titles left and right as a basketball coach for the University of San Carlos and Southwestern University.
“Dodong has been a fixture in the local basketball scene for more than five decades now, and he has done an enormous job boosting Cebu’s basketball program,” said Hall of Fame screening committee chairman Manuel Oyson, also widely regarded as the dean of Cebu sportswriting.
For more than 50 years in the local basketball scene, “Dodong” Aquino – as a player, coach, and a civic figure — made overachieving a routine activity.
Aquino started his sporting career as a collegiate basketball player, where he played under the legendary Manuel Baring for USC. With Aquino, a force in the backcourt, and Baring a force at the sidelines, the USC Warriors captured the first-ever National Students (Inter-Collegiate division) Basketball Championship crown in 1946.
Shortly after his stint as a player, Aquino went on to coach USC, which he turned into a perennial powerhouse in the mid-50s to mid-60s. During that time, USC and UV engaged in a fierce hardcourt rivalry that turned out to be one of the most colorful episodes of the local college basketball scene.
Like most winners, Aquino had the extraordinary gift for bringing out the best in his protégés.
It was while playing for Aquino at USC back in 1957 when Julian Macoy rocked Philippine basketball with a phenomenal feat: scoring 126 points in 29 minutess in a game against the Cebu school of Arts and Trade during the CAAA 1957-58 season, and setting the Philippine basketball all-time record for the single-game high for points that still stands to this day.
Aquino also coached a rag-tag USC basketball squad, made up of intramural players that conquered the powerful University of the Visayas (UV) en route to winning the championship of the CAAA.
Ramon Fernandez, who would later become a dominating player in the PBA, first flashed his extraordinary talent under the tutelage of Aquino at USC.
Aquino continued to serve the Cebu sporting circuit long after he retired as a coach.
He eventually became the longest-serving Commissioner of the CAAA, where he is credited for his innovative, astute amendment of the league’s tournament rules and regulations. He then held the chairmanship of the Cebu City Sports Commission before serving for the BAP.
Aquino, no doubt, will be remembered as a great competitor who relished in raising the bar of the local sports program.
“It’s about time that he gets the recognition because his accomplishments are among the most impressive in the province, if not the entire country,” summed up Oyson. GCM
(February 16, 2004 issue)
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