This appears in ateneo.edu
The
builder coach cometh
Bo Perasol arrives in a new era for Ateneo basketball.
by rick olivares
How do you follow a multi-titled champion
coach?
Dolreich “Bo” Perasol doesn’t know the
answer to that but he will certainly give it the old college try in order to
find out.
Perasol isn’t new to hardship or struggles.
As a youngster growing up in General Santos City in the early 1980s, Perasol
used to walk for several kilometers just to get to school. It would be so hot
that by the time he arrived in school, his face was sweaty, his arms caked in
dust, and his lips parched. He did this for almost every single day of his life
until he moved to Manila for college.
When he arrived as a wide-eyed
freshman at the University of the Philippines, he was a mere walk-in aspirant
for the men’s basketball team. His coach Rey Madrid wasn’t even sure what to
make of him. He was after all a Masscom student whose first choice was to go to
the school of music because he liked to sing. But Perasol worked hard enough to
moved up from Team B all the way to the seniors squad.
In his first ever PBA coaching job, Perasol
saw his team trade away its top draft picks of 2005 in Anthony Washington and
Mark Cardona. Yet somehow, Perasol led the Air21 Express to a third place
finish in the Fiesta Cup. In 2008, Perasol steered the Express once more to the
Fiesta Cup Finals this time against Ginebra. Even with spitfire behind Gary
David and Arwind Santos, the Express fell in six matches. Not soon after, team
management deal away his top players and the team fell into a period of
mediocrity.
When Perasol moved to the Coca
Cola/Powerade Tigers, he found himself in the same situation – lead a rag tag
outfit of discards, draft a few top college players, compete for a PBA title, and
then see them dealt away. It was while he was with the Powerade Tigers where
Perasol considers his best coaching job to date as they battled Talk ‘N Text
for the 2011-12 Philippine Cup.
With top rookies Jayvee Casio and
Marcio Lassiter and pickups Doug Kramer and Sean Anthony to back up Gary David,
the Tigers defeated two top seeds in B-Meg and Rain or Shine before falling to
the Tropang Texters in six games.
Soon after, with the team headed for
disbandment, players were traded away. Key players in the Philippine Cup run
were gone. The championship contender that Perasol took so long to nurture and
build was gone.
That is why the move to Loyola
Heights, although with the Ateneo Men’s Basketball Team clearly in a rebuilding
process, is a welcome change for him. “All my life I played for or coached
teams that had to be built up from scratch – Surigao (in the now defunct
Metropolitan Basketball Association), Air21, Coca Cola, and Powerade... it’s
nice to be a part of a program that is well-funded, well-supported, and has a
winning tradition.”
That decision wasn’t an easy one to
make though. After the Coca Cola/Powerade PBA franchise disbanded, Perasol was
a cinch to become league newcomer Global Port’s first head coach. “There was
that building from scratch job all over again,” smiled the coach.
However, when Ateneo patron Manuel V.
Pangilinan asked him if he would like to coach the Ateneo Blue Eagles, he
mulled over the offer. The first person he sought advice about the job was
former UP and Ateneo head coach Joe Lipa.
“It seemed that more people warned me
than congratulated me,” explained Perasol. “It is no secret about how demanding
it can be coaching Ateneo especially with everything that they have
accomplished and won through the years. But Coach Joe told me to focus on the
task at hand and that maraming mabait na tao na tutulong sa yo.”
This was the tipping point. In the
PBA, he was only answerable to the owner as his teams didn’t have large fan
bases. Now, he knows it’s an entire community that he has to please.
In the recently concluded UAAP season,
Perasol made his first appearance in the “blue” side during the first round
Ateneo-La Salle match. “I didn’t just observe the game of Ateneo,” he recalled.
“I went there to watch the crowd. You see entire families there – si daddy, si
mommy, mga anak, pati si Lolo at si Lola. This was the kind of support the team
got. It was a community event. And these are the people who you have to think
about (aside from the players) when you take to the basketball court. Kapag
natalo hindi makatulog; hindi makakain. That is how intertwined the Ateneo community
is with the basketball team.”
During his time in UP, the Battle of
Katipunan was the Fighting Maroons’ championship. And it still is. “Matalo na
lahat wag lang sa Ateneo,” laughed Perasol at the memory. “We knew we didn’t
have a chance against FEU that had Johnny Abarrientos and Vic Pablo, UST had
Dennis Espino and an entire team that went to the pros. La Salle had Jun Limpot
and a bunch of stars. Kami, we were down there with NU. Ateneo had lost its
players who won championships to graduation and they were not the same. They
were down there. Pero bale wala yan sa amin. Makaisa kami sa Ateneo, okay na.
That was our championship. But of course, we wanted to win more. Rivalry lang
yan. Ganyan din naman between Ateneo and La Salle.”
Now he is at the other end of
Katipunan and wearing blue.
If Ateneans are worried about his
loyalties, Perasol has this story for an explanation.
While growing up in General Santos
City, there weren’t any malls back then or even the internet to stay updated
with the times. To keep up with the PBA games, Perasol and his father would
stay glued to a beat up transistor radio that was their lifeline to the fabled
Toyota and Ginebra San Miguel teams of old when El Presidente presided over the
lane and The Big J barreled right in.
It was a ritual consummated by the
father and the son. The father wished his son would become a basketball player.
Although Bo never did make it to the pros he discovered that even while playing
in the UAAP, he enjoyed the other side of coin and that was coaching and
teaching.
In his first ever game as head coach
of the Surigao Miners, Perasol’s wards defeated his hometown SoCSarGen Marlins.
The coach wept afterwards because his father had passed away unable to see his
son make it to the pros albeit in a different way.
When he became head coach of Air21, he
found it easy to coach against his boyhood favorite, Ginebra San Miguel. “You
learn real quick to put aside sentiment or else your job is on the line. You
have to be professional about things. And if Coach Joe could do it then so can
I.”
And so Bo Perasol, “the builder coach”
is the 36th head coach in Ateneo Blue Eagles history.
While watching the combined players of
Ateneo Teams A and B practice, he couldn’t help but notice that there are many
sons of players he once watched or played against. There are a couple of
Ravenas and Capacios. An Adornado. A Cabahug. And a Black.
He looks forward to the coaching job.
He knows with every team out there reloaded for bear for the sole purpose of
unseating Ateneo, it will be a struggle. But he’s used to that by now. The
hardship he faced as a youngster has served him well in his different head
coaching jobs. He has no doubt that it will serve him in good stead in Loyola
Heights. He paraphrased a quote from the late and legendary UCLA head coach
John Wooden who he idolizes, “This isn’t just basketball. This is a game. About
life.”
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