SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY-Phinma (SWU-Phinma) athletic program is going to get a major boost, thanks to Pio Gerardo R. Solon.

Solon, who took over last Aug. 28 as the school’s new athletics director, is looking to fulfill his advocacy 15 years in the making.

“Sports gave me a ticket to education and I served as an athlete, as a coach and now as an administrator,” said Solon, who is going to be one of the youngest athletic directors in Cebu City.

This early, Solon cleared out fears and misconceptions about the program being too scientific as he is a sports science graduate from the University of the Philippines-Diliman.

“Everyone thought when I started that, ‘Oh, it’s going to be a very scientific program because he’s a sports science graduate.’ That is what we really want but we also want to professionalize and systematize our sports programs. There will also be a greater emphasis on discipline and academic performance,” said Solon.

Solon said it won’t only be the athletic department that would be involved in the program but also the guidance counselors and the coaches. He said academics and athletics could be developed together and that athletic discipline can be applicable to academic discipline.

“We’re going to be strict with their grades. We’re going to have mandatory study and it’s going to equate to certain eligibility issues and scholarships. So it’s both relational, but there is still a carrot and a stick,” he said.

The carrot being the scholarships and the stick being the athletes’ grades. Based on the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. eligibility rules, an athlete only needs to pass 60 percent of his subjects to be able to play but Solon said SWU is open to adapting other schools’ practice of requiring student-athletes to pass all of their subjects.

It is a change that Solon admits, must be accepted not just by the athletes but the parents as well.

“Parents also need to buy into that, with what we’re doing. We’re going to do an athletes and parents conference to emphasize those things,” he said.

Solon’s ideal vision is for student athletes’ GPA to be higher than that of their average students and he plans to do this by giving athletes mandatory study hours.

He also plans to put up a Sports Performance Unit, which will involve sports doctors, strength and conditioning coaches and physical therapists. He also plans to do a sports psychology program, one that could be a first in the cesafi.

“We’re going to do mental skills training. We want to test how they manage pressure? How do they control their anxiety? How they set goals. Then we’re going to look at their nutrition also...We are cautiously optimistic but ambitious,” he said.

Solon’s ultimate goal for the athletic program of SWU—which currently only has basketball, volleyball and badminton teams—is to transform the image of a student athlete who graduates from their school.

“Akong goal gyud sa mga student athlete sa Southwestern kay mahangol ang kompanya... tatak na SWU-Phinma athlete na masud sa kumpanya na kugihan sa eskwela, unya kugihan sad mu-trabaho,” he said.

He said this is in support of Phinma’s goal of nation-building and says SWU-Phinma athletes can become competent people with a capacity to work thanks to a strong support system of coaches, sport nutritionists and sport psychologists.

Pio, who took up swimming at six years old, recalled how he woke up at 4:30 a.m. to train before going to school. He now sees it as his mission to teach how to find the balance between academics and sports to SWU-Phinma athletes.

“I need to give back because I saw in myself how sports molded me in terms of discipline, grit and hard work. It’s that athletes’ discipline that I want to give to the program here.

Thought it might be hard, he said with the cooperation of everyone in the program, the athletes can do it.

“If I was able to do it before, they can also do it,” he said.