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Saturday, April 23, 2005
Oyson: CIT players in the Micaa
By Manuel N. Oyson, Jr.
Counter Punch
WHEN our newsroom executive assistant Rose Yumol told me that a certain Owen Sanchez was on the phone, I immediately sensed why he would be calling me for the first time after almost 50 years.
“Do you still remember me, Atty. Oyson?”
Yes, yes, of course, I replied. Who does not remember Owen Sanchez, one of the stalwarts (6-foot tall) of the Cebu Institute of Technology Wildcats, the 1955-56 Cebu Collegiate Athletic Association champions? Also 1957 Zone VII titlist.
That was the year when coach Antonio “Jimmy” Bas sparked CIT to an upset over the UV combination of Eddie Cabahug, Eddie Mendoza, Guillermo Bas, Dodong Gullas, Marvin Najarro and Alfonso “Boy” Marquez to capture the CCAA Men’s championship. That was CIT’s first championship in the CCAA. The Green Lancers would win their first national inter-collegiate crown on December 1957.
BOY FUENTES. Owen said he had read my column (“Former collegians who played in the Micaa,” 4-16-05) and said he had something to amplify if I would allow him to do so. I already issued a disclaimer that there are some former CCAA players whom ex-UJS-R Jaguar Pabling Cañoneo failed to mention, this column is really to acknowledge them. On the phone, Owen said that of his batch of 1955, ’56 and ’57, there are only five of them still alive, including Sigfredo “Boy” Fuentes.
The name immediately rang a bell. Who does not remember “Boy” Fuentes, another six-footer (a rarity at the time) and a former candidate to the RP team to the 1960 Rome Olympics?
Only a freak accident at the plant where he works after becoming both an electrical and mechanical engineer and the loss of three fingers on his right hand, ended his promising basketball career.
Over rounds of beer and much sumsuman at Baseline Restaurant, and for almost four hours, Owen and “Boy recalled their glory days at CIT (it was then located at C. Padilla St.).
LIVING ‘5’. Joining us later was former City Councilor Erning Elizondo, a die-hard San Josenian. Another friend of Owen, Ciso Aballe, was also with us.
I said that I saw some of their games because I was then already in my second year of law studies at the UV.
Joining us then were engineers Eddie Planas and Anecito Chambers, who were their teammates in the CIT squad . It was also their first reunion of sorts after their CCAA days.
They certainly had tons of stories to recollect and retell. The fifth living member of that famous team is Benjamin Rosello, who now lives quietly in Seattle, Washington There were originally 12 of them.
Before his accident, Fuentes had stints with U-Tex and Seven-Up. But for 14 years after that, he became driver-navigator alternately with the former Toyota Coach Dante Silverio or Pocholo Ramirez from 1966 to 1980 in various international car rallies in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Malaysia.
He is a member of the Automobile Rally Association Philippines. To the uninitiated, a rally is a competitive long-distance automobile run of sport cars over long distance and under ordinary traffic rules.
LUCENTE, TOO. The object is to maintain a specified exact average speed between checkpoints over a route unknown to the participants until the start of the run.
Fuentes has a home in Mabolo.
While Chambers had stints with Crispa, U-Tex and Yellow Taxi lasting for three years. He later migrated to Las Vegas. Nevada.
Rosello himself played for three years with PAL Sky Masters and Yellow Taxi. He now lives quietly in Seattle, Wash.
Planas, who played right forward, was a former chief mechanical/electrical engineer of the Air Transportation Office in Mactan. He dabbles as an amateur photographer. Owen owns a string of pawnshops in Metro Cebu.
On this page, they have requested me to publish a photograph of four of the survivors of the CIT team of 1955-56 who paid a courtesy call on their alma mater on April 20 at the office of CIT president Gregorio L. Escario.
That is, 50 years after they wore the familiar maroon and yellow Wildcats colors. Incidentally, Elizondo informed me that Manoling Lucente, formerly a teammate of his at USJ-R, also played briefly for Mariwasa Tiles in the Micaa in 1959-60.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “This is a reckoning point and it depends a lot on how the Commissioner (Noli Eala) treats it.” – Buddy Encarnado, PBA chairman, on the claims that Eric Menk of Barangay Ginebra has been ordered deported by the Justice Department for being born to an American mother.
(mno@sunstar.com.ph)
(April 23, 2005 issue)
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