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Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Sayson: Key to the CCSC post: accessibility
By Homer Sayson
Secondovertime
CHICAGO – A businessman who owns a chain of pawnshops was recently named to replace Jonathan Guardo as Cebu City Sports Commission (CCSC) chairman. When this news filtered in my phone’s text messaging system yesterday, the needle in my excitement meter did not move at all.
That’s because I was hoping for the genius, who runs both the Cebu City Sports Center and the Sinulog Foundation to get the job.
Ricky Ballesteros Jr., my former boss at the CCSC, would have been a natural, perfect fit. Ricky was born with a blueprint of the CCSC clasped between his tiny fingers, and he learned from the one of the best leaders of our time – ex-city councilor and ex-congressman Joy Young.
Cleverly disguised as a sports column, Sun.Star Cebu’s John Pages penned a literary masterpiece the other day, endorsing dancesport king Edward Hayco as Jonathan Guardo’s rightful heir.
I agree, wholeheartedly. Hayco also ranked high in my wish list.
Like the very likeable Guardo, Hayco is open and casual, a real ‘joie de vivre’. In other words, Ed and Jonathan are ‘pang-masa’ and therefore synonymous with the CCSC’s thrust of promoting sports in the grassroots level.
In the interest of full disclosure, this new CCSC chief helped finance my 2002 NBA Finals coverage. In September of the same year, he dug P10,000 from his deep pocket and also sponsored my coverage to the Oscar del Hoya vs. Fernando Vargas blockbuster.
And just like my other sponsors, the incoming CCSC chair got a lot in return – his company’s logo plastered prominently in our Sun.Star Cebu house ads, formal acknowledgement in my column, plus repeated mention of his company’s name in my radio segments.
Look, I personally like Michel Lhuillier, but would he really sit in one of those cheap City Hall chairs on a languid Monday afternoon? Assuming he spends ample time at City Hall, like Dodong Aquino and Guardo consistently did, would Lhuillier be comfortable mingling with the common folks?
A stone’s throw away from Carbon market, the City Hall air wafts with the pungent smell of cigarette smoke and garish cologne. Wouldn’t this scare the new CCSC leader, who smells so good you’d think he just stepped out of an Armani perfume factory?
Michel runs his business empire hands-on. He also holds a sensitive post at the BAP. And he owns the MLDF, plus a pair of basketball teams. So I ask, where does the CCSC fit in his schedule?
I talked to my sportswriting peers at Sun.Star last night and they told me that their greatest concern is Lhuillier’s accessibility. “It’s hard to get him for an interview,” one said. “We only find him at his team’s championship parties and he doesn’t say much,” he added.
That’s right. Finding Michel is like looking for the Dalai Lama.
The NBA gave me credentials to cover the Jan. 22 Lakers-Raptors game at Staples Center. This means that I have to drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles immediately after the Pacquiao-Morales rematch. But I’ll do it because my chances of interviewing Phil Jackson is greater than the odds of me and Michel talking.
Lhuillier will supposedly get a lot of help from Yayoy Alcoseba, a city councilor who also coaches the ML Jewelers. I don’t know how this would work since the Committee on Sports is chaired by Jack Jakosalem.
Yayoy and Jack share a mutual respect and they appear civil in public. Privately though, my sources say, they hate each other like Iran and Israel.
“Yayoy wanted my job the first day he stepped inside City Hall,” Guardo told Sun.Star Cebu the other day. If that suspicion is true, is Jack now uneasy that the man who once coveted his good friend’s post now lurks a breath away from the CCSC chairmanship?
If Cebu basketball had a face, it would be Michel Lhuillier’s. Handsome and so easy on the eyes. If Cebu football had a soul, it would be Michel Lhuillier’s. Kind and generous.
But as CCSC chairman, Michel Lhuillier needs to love and embrace other sports as well, let his charm spread. But will he?
“I hope so,” Guardo says. “Michel can’t put himself in a corner and be stereo-typed as just a basketball and football-minded leader. Michel must get really involved hands-on, not just delegate jobs to his multitude of lieutenants. I wish him the best of luck.”
I wanted to talk to Michel Lhuillier yesterday and get his opinion. But guess what, I couldn’t reach him.
(homsay@hotmail.com)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 11, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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