The journey of Tim Cone

Tim Cone continues to set the bar higher and higher, distancing himself from the field even more. This time, he has rewarded the faith of fans and restored the luster to the country’s most popular basketball team, ending an eight-year drought for Barangay Ginebra in a thrilling six-game season finale. In 30 finals appearances, Cone has won 19 PBA titles. He has been in the finals more than many teams currently playing today. Winning for Ginebra makes him the closest thing to a sure thing in the tempestuous, erratic world of coaching. He has become the constant in world where entire companies and their franchises come and go.

Not many are privy to the long, colorful journey Tim has had to get here. He first arrived in the Philippines as a baseball-loving eight-year old, and first picked up a basketball in Baler, of all places. He stoked his love for the game playing in bare feet or rubber slippers on a dirt court that had a tree in the middle. Then his family moved to Makati, where village games became personal rivalries with all comers, particularly this group of brothers who eventually became fast friends, he was nice so exhausted from playing, he slept an entire day. That was probably when everyone realized his passion for the game would take him places.

In his first foray into coaching, his intensity led him to impose a college-style program on a bunch of young high schoolers, one of them was so fired up, he ran over Cone during a drill. But this was also when he was exposed to the PBA, and his insights would not be lost on his friend and Alaska Milk owner, Fred Uytengsu. In those turbulent years right after the historic EDSA People Power revolution, the PBA was vastly different, still carried by vestiges of the style during its beginnings in the 1970s.

“When I joined the league in 1989, it was really remarkable to hold teams to a hundred points,” Cone told this writer in an interview in 2014. “I mean it was like, wow, I mean that a team had a hundred points. I mean their score was 138-134 or 127-126 I mean these are huge scores. I remember we led the league in defense and we were giving up a hundred and twelve points a game. And we led the league in defense! And the next highest in a hundred and twenty one points a game.”

In those early years, the Basketball Coaches Association of the Philippines was a young, fiery organization, as well, and sought to prevent non-Filipino coaches from taking jobs from homegrown talent. This, in turn, caused some setbacks for Cone’s budding career, which he eventually overcame by going through proper procedures and channels. Nevertheless, he became known as a real firebrand, comtesting every call that he felt was improperly made, marching up to the officials’ table and giving them a piece of his mind. He claims to have mellowed down the past few seasons.

“I know I was really bad when I was younger. I see some old clips, I get embarrassed, honestly,” Cone admits. “And when I do those things, when I start to watch the video and I go crazy. I fast forward and I don’t wanna look at it. So I don’t really see myself do that much, but you know I have a passion for watching young guys gets better, you know. I think that’s the real passion of mine. I always appreciated the fact that Fred Uytengsu would always say that the only guy he knew who hates losing more than him was me. And that’s why he hired me, just a desire to win and watch people celebrate. And I love the game.”

After winning Alaska a second-best total of chamoionships in the oeague, Cone asled out of his contract, and later transferred to Purefoods / San Mig Coffee. Cone we t from a team that caused traffic to a team that stopped it.

“It was really neat you know, I was there for twenty years and I loved them and then I came to San Mig. The popularity of the San Mig team is really, really big and lots of fans and the it’s like I have a celebrity status now,” Tim says, still surprised. “I mean especially the last few conferences. With the press making it big deal about me and Baby Dalupan and everything, you know. I jump to a whole new level of celebrity status and now it’s difficult for me to go to the malls without having pictures and stuff and it’s remarkable. I don’t think I’ve done anything special. I’m just a basketball coach. And you know, it’s really strange at this point. It never fails to amaze me. And be honest, again it never fails to humble me that they make so much of a basketball coach.”

And to his credit, he always ho ors his players and all those whose greatness he has harnesed. Even as the game gets more and more challenging, he still finds ways to win. What it establishes is that, when you put the system above all, you prevail. In the early days of the PBA, the teams with the most money got all the best players, even with the handicapping of number or height of omport. There was a time when the PBA gave the strongest teams the shortest imports, or allowed them to play just one import at a time when weaker teams could play two. Thiugh it mitigated dominance to some effect, the overwhelming riches of talent would still break through. Crispa and Toyota, for example, won a combined 22 of the first 30 PBA championships. As coaching evolved, it became less about matching up and more about conditioning and creating systems that worked. And the one thing that Tim has done consistently is that.

“I’m just playing for that little corner of history, when someone’s winning 20, 25 championships, and people will talk about me the way they’re talking about Baby. They’ll remember me the way they remember Baby.”

Somehow, I don’t think anyone else woll do that in this lifetime.