A dream revived

For most people, the dream of becoming a professional athlete ends at about the time one mulls a possible career. After all, training six hours or more a day leaves precious little time - and even less energy - to do anything else. So, we quietly, painfully let go of our dreams and the life we could have crafted, and go on to make a living, though the nagging question of "What if?" will always whisper in the back of our minds, a dull, throbbing ache in our hearts.

Everywhere you turn in Metro Manila, there are thousands of people playing the game who carry that question within them. They are students, professionals and former players who have, at one point or another, been discouraged from pursuing their dream for lack of emotional or financial support, injury, fatigue, or just plain discouragement, with the remaining time to chase the dream slowly draining away. Even regular large basketball tournaments that offer a national championship often give one the chance to represent the country in an international event sponsored by the same company, but they are usually limited in terms of participants via age and other criteria. Even the formation of national basketball teams has been reduced into a by-invitation only affair, leaving the common man out of the hunt.

Once in a while though, a long-slumbering dream can be awakened with the right opportunity to play in an open competition.

It was this that prompted Gillette Philippines to conduct its Search for the Sixth Man contest via the Gillette Metro Basketball League (MBL) 2005 Vector Cup, a massive series of tournaments to seek out its newest endorser from among the thousands of weekend warriors whose love for the game has not diminished.

"It is Gillette’s belief that every individual, whether he was a varsity or non-varsity player, has the potential to represent the ideals we are looking for in a Sixth Man." says Ramon Alcasid, business manager of Gillette Philippines. "In order to give everyone an equal opportunity, it was our goal to establish a league that would attract all types of players from different backgrounds and skill levels."

But how does one go about finding a talent pool with enough players to be representative of the seemingly bottomless well of players out there? One solution was finding existing tournaments and grouping them together with new divisions to piece together the large tournament needed.

The Gillette MBL was officially launched in August through the Fr. Martin Cup Division II, a developmental league with 18 participating collegiate varsity teams. Other tournaments under the MBL were an Ateneo Alumni Invitational, Ateneo College Students Open, Ateneo Law School, UP Students Open, Youth for Christ (YFC) Metro Manila, Open Division, Corporate Division, and Lawyers Division. Aside from the Fr. Martin Cup, other established tournaments associated with the Gillette MBL include the La Salle Basketball League (LSBL) and the CCF D-Group DOS Basketball League. In all, 184 teams participated, making the Vector Cup one of the largest basketball events in the country. From those teams, over 2,000 players were given the opportunity to be the Gillette Vector 6th Man, even those who were never varsity players.

"This was very challenging in terms of scheduling," admits Chiqui Paterno of the organizing Management Partners Group (MPG). "We had to contact several organizations over a span of many weeks to set this up."

But Paterno is no stranger to running huge tournaments. He has been running the Ateneo Basketball League (ABL) for five years, and has seen its participation increase every year. Last season, the ABL had a record 123 teams, by far the biggest alumni basketball league in the country.

On October 15, Gillette Philippines will announce the winner of the Search for the Sixth Man Contest, who will join the prestigious Gillette Vector First Five of Alaska’s Rich Alvarez, Purefoods’s James Yap and Paul Artadi, Air21’s Wesley Gonzalez and Red Bull’s Enrico Villanueva. Needless to say, it is extremely rare for an ordinary Juan dela Cruz to be catapulted into such elite company, more so as a product endorser.

"Part of the criteria for being selected the sixth man is obviously the player’s performance on the court as evidenced by his statistical performance and his team’s record in their tournament," Alcasid continues. The complete statistics and other information on the Gillette MBL can be downloaded from the official website, www.mblvectorcup.com.

From over 2,000 players, the number of candidates for the Gillette Vector Sixth Man has been whittled down to eight. From the Fr. Martin Cup, these include Marvin Agacer of FEATI, Ronnie Bughao of Ateneo de Manila, Giorgio Ciriacruz and Orlando Darroya from Arellano, and John Paul Escobal from San Beda College. The remaining three candidates are Marti Espiritu (Ateneo Alumni Invitational) and Mark Mavrides and AJ Malabanan from the UP Open.

In a few days’ time, one of these eight men will vault into the spotlight, standing alongside the best young players in the game, thanks to a rare chance to live a dream, continued.

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The biggest stories in basketball will be on tonight’s episode of The Basketball Show, at 9 p.m. over IBC-13.