Sense of duty

Alaska team owner Fred Uytengsu said yesterday there was no hesitation in sacrificing a possible PBA Grand Slam in 1998 when “the sense of duty calls to serve the country.” Uytengsu recalled that the team had won the All-Filipino and Commissioner’s Cups and was a win shy of duplicating its trifecta in 1996. Actually, the league held two more conferences that season, the Centenni-al and Governors Cups. Alaska lent head coach Tim Cone to pilot the national squad at the Asian Games then he brought along Johnny Abarrientos, Jojo Lastimosa and Kenneth Duremdes to leave the team, then known as the Milkmen, vulnerable.

“It wasn’t a sure Grand Slam,” said Uytengsu in a PlayItRightTV streamyard interview from Los Angeles. “If we had Tim, Johnny, Jojo and Kenneth together, I liked our chances. But when the call came, there was no discussion. We were proud to make the sacrifice, proud of the outcome because we took the bronze at the Asian Games.”

Asked to name his top five Alaska local players, Uytengsu had no difficulty listing four – Abarrientos, Lastimosa, Duremdes and Bong Hawkins. He struggled to pick a fifth but considered Sonny Thoss, Cyrus Baguio, Bong Alvarez and Calvin Abueva. As for his top three imports, he started off with Sean Chambers. “Sean was second to none, Mr. 100 percent,” he said. “Diamond Simp-son was a class act. He brought his mother out here and I respect players who treat their families that way. It resonates with me a lot. Devin Davis? He had those dreadlocks and gold teeth. He was scary defensively.”

Uytengsu said it was an opportunity and privilege to join the PBA in 1986 when he was only 24. “I knew very little negotiating with (PBA deputy commissioner) Tommy Manotoc who didn’t make it easy for this young kid,” he said. “There was an expansion pool but we couldn’t build a strong team. We didn’t draft the way we should’ve. It was a lot of learning and we made a lot of mistakes. I just wanted our team to be a good representation of our company, a clean and wholesome team for the fans, for mothers who buy our product – milk – and for children to like our players who were our ambassadors on and off the court. We wanted to be like the Dallas Cowboys of the PBA, respected, did the right things. We espoused virtues and wanted to win.”

Finding the ideal coach for Alaska was by accident. In its first three years, Alaska tried out five coaches until Cone came along. “In 35 years, we only had 10 coaches, a lot less than others in that period,” he said. “I blame my immaturity for not being patient at the start. I should’ve laid out expectations for our coaches clearly. In fairness to our coaches, I just wanted to win so bad-ly. When we lost, I wouldn’t sleep at night and I expected that from our coaches, too. I had a high school friend, Tim who would comment a lot and give ideas to do this or do that to make us win. It actually got irritating because he was always in my ear. So one day, I told him, why don’t you do it yourself? He asked me is that an offer? I don’t really mix friends with business espe-cially when it comes to coaching because it’s such an insecure job. Coaches get fired and I didn’t want to jeopardize our relationship. Actually, it took some time before we won our first cham-pionship with Tim. I remember when we were losing, there was clamor to fire Tim, we were losing and I was advised to find new blood. We learned the hard way. With experience, I became more patient and we were rewarded.” More on Uytengsu in tomorrow’s column.