Despite all my success in 10 years coaching UST, with 7 mens and 5 women titles during that span, I still felt that there were far bigger things to achieve and I searched for ways to 'spread my wings'. I felt I needed to show everyone that I could still produce a winner, even without the machinery and reputation of UST as an institution and how the really good players tend to gravitate towards it. Then in late 2010, one of my father's former DLSU volleyball players and family friend Mr. Edwin Lee, who worked closely with the Sy family in SM, contacted me if I would consider heading the soon-to-be-launched tennis program of National University; from scratch! It was an intriguing project, beginning a program with no players, no existing structure, with the league cellar dwellers in most sports. I accepted the job soon after winning the Season 73 UAAP title for the UST Mens team in 2011. I came in knowing it would be the ultimate challenge to build a winner.
Just in my first week into the job, I was in the school elevator with some students and school officials when one of the students lamented the previous days loss in basketball by NU. The school official then interjected that it was 'ok' because the team kept the score close. I knew right there how different the culture was in NU, and how it had to change for the better. I had to help and do my part in having a winning mentality on the court that would hopefully rub off on the other teams and the NU community in the future.
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| Post championship interview with ABS CBN Sports |
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| Three-peat champions NU Bulldogs in UAAP Season 77 |
Fast forward 10 years later, and I am proud to say that the Tennis program delivered one of the first championship titles that started the change in the culture in National University starting in UAAP Season 75. We provided the belief to other teams that they could do it as well. Our mens team won four straight titles, and had then a UAAP record 44 straight wins over 4 seasons. Our womens team were not to be outdone, also winning 4 straight titles from Season 76-79. We experienced much difficulty in recruiting players at the beginning, since we had no track record, no winning traditions, nor the name recall of the school in the regional level. Our womens team wasn't able to compete in our first year since we didn't have enough players to form a team. Yet we found a way to triumph despite the inexperience, despite the challenges. I knew it was going to be hard at the start, but not THAT hard that our efforts in recruiting players from the provinces were not even being strongly considered by their families. We had to fill up our roster with players who weren't even in our 'big board', or list of potential recruits. We had to scout and offer on the regional competitions, as our chances to land the players we wanted on the national level, and Palaro levels tend to choose the other universities.
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| Source: Wikipedia |
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| First title for the NU Bulldogs in school history in only the 2nd year of the program in UAAP Season 75 |
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| The title runs of the Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs from UAAP Season 75-79 |
Looking back on my two-decade collegiate coaching career, I will focus not on the titles won over that period, which I know will only be remembered in the pages of Wikipedia and UAAP files. As I always mention to my players: No one will remember the championships a few years after, and you will not be able to take the trophies and medals with you in your life's journey. "But what you can take with you everyday of your lives are the skills, experiences, and lessons you gained along the way". with that, I wish to share the most important and memorable lessons I learned in this chapter of my journey.
1) Winning is a skill to be mastered and not automatically a byproduct of hard work
I say this not to devalue hard work, but rather to point out that hard work alone doesn't guarantee success. It is hard enough to win a championship; It only gets exponentially tougher if you want to win again and again and again. When I began my coaching career, I was already very competitive, and grew up with that attitude of wanting to win at anything. tournaments, practices, post training sprints, even playing video games and rock paper scissors. You cannot have a switch for it. I saw no point of playing if my goal wasn't to win that game. Hard work, Dedication, Discipline are all requisites to get you to a competitive level in whatever field you are in. Developing a winning mindset, attitude and culture in your team or organisation should be an everyday habit.
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| UAAP Season 78 4-Peat Mens, and 3-Peat Womens Champion (Photo by Raul Quintela) |
What I am most proud of is that my competitiveness and winning attitude rubbed off on my players and teams. A lot of players that I have had the privilege to work with in UST and NU weren't the blue chip types, or national and international champions growing up. except for a few handful, they were not used to winning at a high level. It was a challenge, but yet a fun filled experience of continuously imparting a winning attitude to the players who I've come across all these years, and even more fulfilling to see it become a part of them throughout their collegiate careers in helping our squad win against highly touted opponents, as well as seeing them apply it to finish their studies, as well as in their respective professions years later.
2) Each team forms its own unique identity, and should be coached differently
In the collegiate setting, the turnover of players happens really fast. Each player plays 4-5 years, and you lose and gain new players each year. The overall identity of each team despite having generally the same players changes as players improve, mature over that 4-5 year timeline. Some coaches 'coach' the same way year in year out usually because their 'formula' and 'system' has worked. What I learned over the years is that the coach has to adjust to how he or she manages the team and the individuals even though the core of the team stays intact.
Take the case of the 2011-2016 4-Peat NU Bulldogs, with an all-rookie lineup when we started the program. I was placed in a unique situation where I basically had the entire core to work with for five seasons. We won the title ahead of schedule on our second season, and by the time they were in their 3rd-5th season, we were pretty much on autopilot. People on the outside would often say that I didn't need to coach the team anymore because we were so dominant already. But the streak of winning carries with it a different type of burden.
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| With NU Chairman Dr. Hans T. Sy together (from L-R: Coach Toto Joven, Alvin Patrimonio, Team Consultant Dominik Utzinger, Team Manager Arch. Paul Galang, and Mayor Rolen Paulino) |
In 2011, myself, together with fellow coach Bobby Esquivel focused on establishing discipline, work ethic and building a champions attitude on and off the court. By their second and third season our top players Leander Lazaro and Fritz Verdad were already competing deep into national mens open events, and the other players were also playing at a very high level in mens open tournaments. The challenge now became more mental, how to stay focused on the goal of winning another UAAP title. Not getting over confident when everyone in the team knew that we were head and shoulders above everyone else. It was about finding ways to keep challenging them when we had won three straight titles. Our fourth title was by far the toughest, as most, if not all were already graduating that season. They had different priorities in their personal lives, were undergoing practicum in a real office and work setting, etc. Egos got the better of our players at a crucial point in the season and they didn't want to play with each other anymore. My role then shifted from planning strategies and battle plans, to serving as a psychologist, psychiatrist, and counsellor during that season, keeping our egos from getting the best of us. A good coach needs to make sense of what his or her team is composed of, and then filling the gaps as needed in order to get the best out of your squad.
3) Channeling failures and negativity as your motivating factors is ephemeral. Have a higher purpose for your coaching.
My failure as a player to deliver a title for UST served as my main motivation and drive to try and win in the first part of my coaching journey. Doubt and negativity from those around me who thought I was given the job too young too soon, or that I inherited a good team, or had blue chip players in some seasons became the proverbial 'chip' on my shoulder. But as you grow and become more experienced, and succeed early on, your motivation, goals and philosophies should also evolve. When I left UST, it was partly because I felt I proved the doubters wrong, and I was looking for a new challenge. When I won in NU, I had a realisation that my driving force cannot be always because people have continually doubted me over the years. I was looking for a higher purpose as I was also maturing and evolving as an individual. I was no longer living a single life, and had started a family. Before my full attention was focused on winning the title each season. But now I had a wife and baby and other personal endeavours to look after.
The vision of the Sy family when they decided to acquire National University and heavily invest in the sports program was to provide opportunities for more talented kids to realise their dreams, by getting quality education and experiencing success that they can carry on to their professional careers either in their sport, or in other fields. I felt the synergy of their vision with what I had been doing over the years in identifying talent that had just not been given an opportunity due to various circumstances. A great majority of the players I had coached were players who come from the middle to lower socio-economic class, and often use the 4-5 year college experience as their way to succeed not only for themselves, but oftentimes for their whole families as well. A lot of them are their families only hope for a better life, so succeeding and learning to live and carry themselves as 'winners' then became even more imperative in their time with our teams. Some have gone on to become doctors, medical professionals, engineers, lawyers, teachers and successful entrepreneurs. Knowing that I made a difference in their lives just makes the titles we won together all the more sweeter!
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| From the book: NU Bulldogs, Acing their way to Greatness |
4) No Excuses
During the latter part of our period of dominance from Season 75-79, there were looming problems that I, together with our management foresaw coming that would later on become a huge debacle for our program; Our players would all be graduating at the same time. Usually, teams lose 1-2 seniors each season and can prepare for it by developing or recruiting new players coming out of High School. Not only would I be losing our entire team in one go, but the looming implementation of the K-12 program in 2016 meant that there would be barely any players coming out of high school for two years! we had recruited 1-2 players each season after the sophomore year of our core 2011 team, but top prospects entering college knew that they wouldn't have a chance to crack our rotation for a good 2 years so most chose to go where they could immediately play. Still, we had barely enough players to field a team in Season 80 until the incoming graduates of K-12 would start college in time for Season 81. We also convinced a few of our graduating players to play one more season so we could still have enough players to field a team that year. But unfortunate events came down one after the other, and it tested my character and resolve for the next couple of years.
Having 8 players for the mens team and 7 for the womens team coming into Season 80, I still had some hope we could compete despite a depleted lineup. UAAP rules called for a minimum 7 players to play on a given match day. A month or so before the start of the competitions, we found out that 2 of our mens players were academically ineligible, and for the womens team, 1 was ruled to have exhausted her playing years, and one chose to pursue work rather than play for another season. We were left with less than the minimum players to field a team. It was devastating for our team, and even more so with the Chairman of NU, Mr Hans Sy. A lot of what happened was beyond my control, and when I talked to Mr Hans, I could see the disappointment and frustration in him, and I learned a valuable lesson right there; that there is simply no excuse for what happened even if most things were beyond my control. All the goodwill built with him and the management and administration of NU over the last five seasons, being the model program of winning on the court, and having exemplary academic records for all our players just went down the drain in one swoop. It was by far the most humbling and lowest points of my coaching career; Not being able to have enough players to field a team for UAAP Season 80.
I promised Mr Hans and the school admin that we will come back stronger next season. This despite knowing I will have a core of rookies, and former bench players from the championship years. We had no 'blue chip' players coming the following season either. I would have to come up with a miracle looking at the rosters of the other teams comparing it to our squad.
Season 81 started with contrasting results for our mens and womens team. Our mens team surprisingly raced to an undefeated first round with different heroes for each game day. Our womens team struggled out of the gate and was in last place at the end of the first round and was one loss away from elimination. The second round also produced contrasting results, with the men, as surprised as anyone being on top, could not handle the pressure and barely held on to the top spot, with cracks in team chemistry heading into the Final Four playoffs. The womens meanwhile racked up a win streak and just refused to go away, forcing a playoff for the second finals slot on the last day of the second round with a 5-0 sweep of the #1 team DLSU. It took every ounce of coaching knowledge and experience on my part to bring the team to the playoffs, and even took unconventional methods, and clever use of social media to set up our final playoff push. After being part of the longest mens finals series which went the full three games, and the women being part of a marathon 13-hour tie in Game 1 of the finals, against all odds, the Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs reclaimed the title for National University. Throughout the season, even when things looked bleak for our teams, all I could think of was the promise I made to Sir Hans that there were to be no excuses, and we would do better!
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| Training Camp in UP Los Baños 2016 |
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| Post match meal with the womens team Season 81 |
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