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Friday, September 16, 2005
Sayson: The slow and the hard: Cesafi sanctions
By Homer Sayson
Second Overtime
CHICAGO – In the course of his team’s 62-56 loss to the University of San Carlos Baby Warriors last Sept. 8 in Minglanilla, University of the Visayas Baby Lancers coach Delfin Pepito Jr., demonstrably unhappy with the officiating, sadly allowed his anger to get the best of him and attempted to “hit referee Jimmy Ybañez.”
After the game, master reporter Gabby Malagar of The Freeman wrote: “Pepito offered a handshake with Ybañez, but he tried to hit the latter’s nape and was parried. A few moments after that, Pepito again confronted Ybañez and a fight almost ensued.”
Having zero tolerance for such behavior, the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc., through commissioner Danny Duran, announced the other day that it would ban Pepito for the rest of the basketball season.
The Cesafi, Duran says, will send a letter informing Pepito of the sanctions imposed on him.
I have faith that Pepito will accept the consequences of his acts like a true and gallant Lancer. But I also have a feeling that once he gets to read Cesafi’s letter of doom, Pepito can’t feel any better than a guy with two flat tires.
Banning Pepito, a basketball lifer, for an entire season is cruel. It’s like clipping a butterfly’s wings for one beautiful summer, a season when the weather is warm and the harvest is abundant.
But given the circumstances of his offense, a series of acts that threatened violence and stained the integrity of the game, I firmly believe that the Cesafi’s decision is just and fair.
I know Pepito is not a violent man, but he isn’t a Gandhi, either. Like so many of us under duress, he got carried away by his emotions. Unfortunately, by trying to make contact with the referee, Pepito reached a point of no return. And if the Cesafi’s hand rendered a lesser penalty, it would have become impotent in the eyes of many.
I’m in a world of hurt, too. And writing about this is hard, it’s like ordering food from the menu of an Arab restaurant.
While employed as The Freeman’s assistant sports editor in 1993, I was sent to the National Inter-Secondary Basketball Championships in Baguio City. I covered the UV Baby Lancers, who had a powerhouse line-up led by Aldrin Ocañada, Stephen Padilla and Abemelich Galinato.
I was only 24, wet behind the ears, and unseasoned as an out-of-towner.
Delfin Pepito Jr. was already the Baby Lancers coach, and while I stayed with his team at Teacher’s Camp, Pepito took me in as if I was one of his own players. He made sure I always had warm food on my plate, a thick blanket in the cold night, and someone to talk to whenever I yearned for home.
BIG HELP. Pepito made my job easy, giving me quick access to him and his players for interviews and occasionally helping me find ways to fax my stories to Cebu at a time when laptop computers and the Internet were scarce, if not totally unavailable.
Heck, Pepito even allowed me to sit in the UV bench in each of the Baby Lancers’ games, affording me the rare privilege of hearing and seeing the things that take place in the huddles of an actual game.
I’m 37 now, wiser and a little smarter in the sportswriting game. I’ve also become more proficient every time I travel from one city to another for a coverage, no longer unsure of myself. And thanks to Pepito, I’ve realized that the road isn’t really a bad place, after all. You get by with simple things like warm food and a thick blanket.
I’ve been to over 10 cities in the US covering the NBA Finals, world championship boxing and other events. But from a personal level, and from the standpoint of how Pepito carried and comforted me as a neophyte sportswriter back then, the 1993 hoopsfest in Baguio was easily the best I’ve ever been to.
And this is exactly why I am terribly saddened today. Jun Pepito, a good friend, a brilliant coach, and a generously wonderful family man, is suspended effectively, immediately.
I feel so sorry for him, yet all I can do is helplessly watch all of it unfold.
P.S. While doing my NBA segment on dyAB last Wednesday, one of Leo Lastimosa’s Arangkada listeners said that unlike its swift action on the UC-USC brawl, the Cesafi dragged its feet in dealing with Pepito.
There was a malicious inference of bias, citing the facts that Cesafi commissioner Danny Duran used to be the coach of the Lancers and that the current Cesafi head is UV president Jose “Dodong” Gullas.
Let me just say here that Dodong Gullas is one of the most honorable people I’ve ever met. Yes, he is fiercely loyal to his employees, but I also know that Gullas is more loyal to what is good and right. Sir Dodong may be human, but unlike most of us, he doesn’t surrender to his biases, not when his integrity, and that of his school and his family, is compromised.
The same could be said of Danny Duran. His moral values are as hard as his good looks.
(homsay@hotmail.com)
(September 16, 2005 issue)
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