(Conclusion)
(Today’s article concludes the piece of Noel Albano, coauthor with Ignacio Dee of the book on the greatest decades of Philippine basketball, Year of Glory, which will be released this summer.)
IN this silent handsome nook, a short drive from the state capital of Sacramento, Danny Florencio is a silent hero. In his sanctuary, a small room by the main door, rows of Florencio’s mementos deck the four walls.
One sees familiar places, famous names, frozen by the camera in the act of shooting, driving—or lifting a championship thropy.
Old pictures in sepia and black and white frame Danny in his prime. One freezes him in his immortal moment, borne on the shoulders of ecstatic teammates in a dance of champions on the night they beat the Koreans. Another catches him in that trademark stretch lay-up, putting the ball beyond the formidable defense.
One of his favorite mementos is broken. It is the trophy that enshrines him in the Philippine Basketball Association Hall of Fame. I mumble that the award-giving body should give him a replica of the glass trophy.
I called this room a shrine to greatness.
Basketball fans of this generation seldom see that epic greatness now among Filipinos in Asian championships. Blame it partly on the pro loop. Since 1975, it has started siphoning off the best talents from the amateur and college hoops—and given little to the cause of the national team.
The pictures bring me back to the past to the time Florencio was playing his best basketball. Because he was a slim 5-foot-10, his game was built not on power but on shiftiness. Quick on his feet and fast with his hands, he could fake off opponents or take twisting drives to the basket. He could shift direction or change his shot in mid-air to elude the defense. The best “contortionist in Philippine basketball,” he was called.
The moves, he tells me now, he learned from Boy Fructoso, his first coach who had put him through rigorous training in the Quiapo neighborhood he grew up in; the fakes from “the second Boy in my life,” Engracio Arazas, the 5-foot-9 sharp-shooter of Far Eastern University fame who was a terror with the ball in his hands.
Once, Florencio recalls, the hard-nosed former national coach Fely Fajardo stopped him as he was taking practice shoots.
“Bakit pinahihirap mo ang basketball? Fajardo, sounding annoyed, asked. “Bakit may bali-bali pa? [Why make basketball so hard? Why the contortions?]”
It was for Florencio more than an expression of himself or his artistry. It was a weapon to escape the trap of bigger and taller guards. He had developed it the hard way. Waking up as early as five o’clock in the morning, he would take practice shots at the nearby fire-station court in Quiapo. The lightly sleeping firemen would rattle in their beds and then bark at him.
“Alas-singko pa lang, sinisigawan na ako ng mga bombero!” Florencio says. “But I had a dream. I wanted not just to be good but to be among the best in the Philippine team.”
nnn
OUT he darts from the kitchen and in he blows again, perpetually active, a man in his 70s but still with the boundless energy of a man in his 30s. He joins the company of the dozen friends in his gazebo sipping wine and swapping stories.
There is Bernie Fabiosa, the steals leader in the PBA for a long time; there is Jun Achacoso, in his mid-80s now, the man who once had a vertical leap of 36 inches; there is Bhot Sison whom many remember as the “dirty player”.
The most memorable tales, surprisingly, are often not the most heroic. They fleet from the 1950s to the 1960s to the present as if on wings of eagles. The laws of physics are suspended—time and space and memories are fused, and these ageless men occupy this capsule, basketball in their hands, pride in their hearts.
They set a grander reunion of former players two days later, a Saturday. More than 30 came.