MORE than 50 coaches from all over Mindanao including a village councilor from Barangay Carmen, Cagayan de Oro City, trooped to Pagatpat Elementary School gymnasium, Cagayan de Oro to learn a different kind of football coaching from coaches of Coaches Across Continents.
CAC is a US-based NGO that teaches football coaches how to make the sport fun and educative.
Barangay Carmen councilor Jerry Estrada Sabanal is very proud for finishing the week-long football coaching course headed by American football (soccer) coach Charlie Crawford, a social impact coach of the CAC.
He was accompanied by Patty Caceres a community impact coach from Tacloban and a member of the Football For Life Academy coaching staff.
Sabanal said that for him, being a football player and turning to be a coach is not easy.
“But because of the love of football, it has become a passion to me and being a part of the Coaches Across Continents and the Gawad Kalinga training, it was my honor to learn new strategies and skills in how to use football to manage social problems in the community.”
He also quoted Mahatma Ghandi, “Live as if you are to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever,” after he was asked to deliver a speech during the closing ceremonies.
Sabanal has been a football person all his life having been a football varsity player for Liceo de Cagayan de Oro during his high school years from 1992-1996.
He was a member of the Coke Go-For-Goal CdO champion team in 1994. The same team finished runner-up in the All Mindanao Championships which qualified to the National Coke Go-For-Goal Championship in Bacolod City in 1995.
He was also a member of the Northern Mindanao team which competed in the Palarong Pambansa in 1996 in General Santos City.
As a coach, he was the head coach of the Don Mariano College fron 1998-2002. Currently he is a member of the Magis Football Club and the captain of the Surposa Cowboy FC.
Sabanal was re-elected barangay councilor of Carmen just recently and heads the barangay Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council. He also was the Carmen barangay Administration from 2013-2016.
The course was also a project of Gawad Kalinga SipaG sports development program headed by Marlyn Importante.
SipaG program uses football to add structures, values and discipline to underprivileged kids. SipaG is under the Child and Youth Development program of Gawad Kalinga.
“It is a leadership program that seeks to promote both social development, and grassroots program for the underprivileged kids,” Importante stressed.
The coaches were also honored by the presence of Jun Degayo, the champion of Child and Youth Development of Gawad Galinga in Mindanao. He started the SipaG program in Maguindanao and Marawi.
The coaching course was also made possible through the efforts of Cagayan de Oro Misamis Oriental Regional Football Association under its president Percy Guarin and the Pagatpat Elementary School under its principal Jenny Espina.
Guarin is also one of the prime movers of the NGO Kugi which is serving the poor residents of Pagatpat.
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