Bert Honasan's eyes glowed with recognition. He clasped my hand firmly and that familiar smile of his broke out. I had not spoken to the former Ateneo football coach in ages. He quickly noted the paunch in my tummy and was dismayed. How can we play when we don't take care of ourselves.
There are two things that make people cringe when pleasantries are made -- age and weight. And I was going down for the count. We spoke for about 20 minutes catching up on a variety of things before he was off. There's an Ateneo football night in the high school this coming Saturday and I hope that I could make it. Coach Bert said he was going to be there.
In the meantime, I had to attend to a meeting that last more than three hours where someone had to explain himself about misappropriation of funds, accusations of corruption, and well, gross ignorance and incompetence. I came away feeling like puking my guts out.
It's hard to get all that psychobabble about self-righteousness when the proof is the contrary.
As a writer I have to make a decision on what is apt to write about. I told myself that I'd never do things for glory but out of what's right. And that includes taking shots at people or organizations.
Exposing the violations of the PCU sports program a couple of years ago was not an easy thing to do. I gave myself a couple of days to think about it. Others in media tried to kill the story but I stuck to my guns and eventually, came out proven right. The same thing with the UAAP report (that I obtained from someone from DLSU) on the Pep Test Scandal that Dong Puno and I came out with at the same time. And there were others as well.
Eventually I decided to stay away from "negative stuff" and tell good stories with human interest angles which is always what I enjoyed. Sure I'd take potshots every now and then especially in my annual Brewskies Awards.
Sev Sarmenta told me about a month ago that he enjoyed reading my championing the lesser known sports and teams from the Homeless World Cup Team to NU to Dacki San Diego of the Special Olympics and even the non-basketball squads.
And quite honestly, it's fun and I enjoy it too. In the coming weeks, you'll read about an unusual football team, a coach who will call his last game, and a tragic story of a sport's slow death.
The latter one starts this Monday.
There are two things that make people cringe when pleasantries are made -- age and weight. And I was going down for the count. We spoke for about 20 minutes catching up on a variety of things before he was off. There's an Ateneo football night in the high school this coming Saturday and I hope that I could make it. Coach Bert said he was going to be there.
In the meantime, I had to attend to a meeting that last more than three hours where someone had to explain himself about misappropriation of funds, accusations of corruption, and well, gross ignorance and incompetence. I came away feeling like puking my guts out.
It's hard to get all that psychobabble about self-righteousness when the proof is the contrary.
As a writer I have to make a decision on what is apt to write about. I told myself that I'd never do things for glory but out of what's right. And that includes taking shots at people or organizations.
Exposing the violations of the PCU sports program a couple of years ago was not an easy thing to do. I gave myself a couple of days to think about it. Others in media tried to kill the story but I stuck to my guns and eventually, came out proven right. The same thing with the UAAP report (that I obtained from someone from DLSU) on the Pep Test Scandal that Dong Puno and I came out with at the same time. And there were others as well.
Eventually I decided to stay away from "negative stuff" and tell good stories with human interest angles which is always what I enjoyed. Sure I'd take potshots every now and then especially in my annual Brewskies Awards.
Sev Sarmenta told me about a month ago that he enjoyed reading my championing the lesser known sports and teams from the Homeless World Cup Team to NU to Dacki San Diego of the Special Olympics and even the non-basketball squads.
And quite honestly, it's fun and I enjoy it too. In the coming weeks, you'll read about an unusual football team, a coach who will call his last game, and a tragic story of a sport's slow death.
The latter one starts this Monday.
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