The Philippine Panorama, the Sunday
magazine of Bulletin Today, ran a feature of coach Baby Dalupan after
steering the Crispa Redmanizers to the 1976 PBA grand slam.
SUPER COACH
By Chelo R. Banal
Philippine Panorama
Published Sunday January 23, 1977
IT was the best of times. Crispa
overpowered stubborn Toyota 11 times during the 1976 pro basketball
league to sweep to an overwhelming triple victory. Needless to say,
it was a grand slam, a sensational season, a mind-blowing performance
and, in a very sweet sense, an everlasting Crispa thrill.
After a cold start in the pro (it was
the fourth in team standing in the PBA's first conference first
round), the Crispa Redmanizers recovered the fire of their MICAA days
to become the Toyota Comets' archrivals for the first and second
tournament titles. The rivalry would long be cherished. Finally,
Crispa dethroned two-time champ Toyota during the 1975 third
conference and since then never went down from its Number One post.
The Redmanizers won 39 of their 57
games during the PBA's first year series. Changing names to Crispa
Denims (for advertising purposes since the Crispa-Floro factory in
Pasig started milling out denim materials), the quintet bagged 46 of
its 61 games during the PBA's second year. Four championships out of
six conferences in the Philippine Basketball Association so far. The
statistics make Virgilio ' Baby' Dalupan the winningest coach in the
league.
It takes a Baby Dalupan to make a bunch
of boys a winning unit. Hindi
kahit sinung baby.
Baby is the Bomb, the team's secret weapon. He shuffles people around
with wisdom, which is possible only because he's aware of his
players' individual virtues. Philip Cezar, Crispa's all-around giant
is among the league's high-ranking players in pointmaking, rebounds,
assists, screening, blocking and interceptions, and he's in his
prime. In Adornado, Crispa has the best forward in the league and
he's also at his peak. Soriano, although past his prime, still can
give the other team a hard time when his heart is on the game. Varela
is a shooting, rebounding, defending, and dedicated relatively new
acquisition and he's not even peaking yet. The past PBA year,
Philip's suspension of the previous season was extended to the first
conference of '76, Adornado hurt his knee, Soriano also got
suspended, and Varela broke his nose. Bad breaks, as you might say.
But
Dalupan went to work and scraped the team out of the mess. He let Co,
Hubalde, Fabiosa and Mann soar to new heights and used them till they
were almost dead tired. “Without Bogs,” he explains, “I
couldn't rely on the old pacing anymore.”
Thankfully,
even if Dalupan fields a second stringer, the play falls into place
with less difficulty than it would in another team. For apart from
having a deep bench, basketball aficionados concede
that the Floro-owned squad has that most priced of sports
commodities: teamwork. Not all the owner's money can draw athletes
into a working harmonious group, however. It is usually the coach who
is responsible for the togetherness deal.
Four times a week, Dalupan presides over two hours of shooting and passing drills and scrimages. It is at this personally supervised sessions that the Denims get their cue and strength from their coach. Any coach gets only as much dedication, hard work and respect as he gives to his players.
Dalupan's
smooth relationship with Crispa cagers is not therefore surprising.
He doesn't exempt any guy from discipline. “If they miss out on a
practice without good reason,” says Baby, “hindi ako
natatakot na ibangko sila, kahit superstar
pa sila, kahit na pagdudahan pa ako na binenta ko ang laro
dahil hindi ko sila ginagamit. They
know me too well, I do that to help them.” Neither is he afraid to
comment on a player's performance with hot words the minute he has a
chance to take him out. He can lose his cool on a player but
thankfully, manager Danny Floro knows what to do on such an instance.
He gives the boy a gentle pat, as if to say, 'Don't worry, the crisis
will soon be over.'
He
would, if it were practical, run all the Crispa horses during a game,
says Dalupan. “Masakit sa akin na nananalo nga kami pero
may player na
malungkot dahil hindi nakalaro. Kung puede lang gawin silang lahat na
superstars.” (He didn't order
Philip's older brother David, however, into the hardcourt the last
season because “I didn't have time to observe him and fit him into
our pattern.”)
But
those little things in the sporting life do not earn respect for a
coach as much as when the players realize that their mentor
understands the role in the ballclub as Baby Dalupan certainly does.
No
baby in the hardcourt experience, Virgilio Dalupan has been a Crispa
fixture for the past 16 years, which means he's also a carryover from
the MICAA like most of the team's men. A an amateur basketball –
associated team, Crispa has a proud record. Under Dalupan's inspired
guidance, Floro's Five has been championship-prone, so much so that
you can say the venerable Dalupan has lost more hair than games for
Crispa.
His
winning streak began when he coached the University of the East
Warriors, a job that kept while coaching Crispa in the MICAA but quit
after 17 years. From there, he was recruited to engineer his alma
mater's bid to the NCAA crown. The Ateneo Blue Eagles have been NCAA
title holders for past two years.
How
many championships can a coach crowd in a lifetime? How many before
he could be hailed as the very best in the job? The victories keep
coming but numbers can only make a veteran, not really an outstanding
dream weaver like Baby Dalupan.
Born
in Malabon, Rizal to Lorenza Adan and Francisco Dalupan, Baby grew up
to be a young man who could run and run longer than you'd think his
scrawny body could take. Enrolled at the Ateneo since his graders,
Dalupan played in the NCAA as a forward who couldn't shoot but and
steal the ball.
From
the Eagles, he went into the amateur tournament and played for the
NDA, NDC, Mission beverage, and Prisco. While working in the Physical
Education department of the UE, he managed to get some experience as
technical assistant for Prisco when the UE dean of commerce then,
Santiago de la Cruz, became Prisco's manager.
Mostly
upon his prodding, the UE organized its UAAP team. Baby volunteered
to coach the Warriors and led the kids to the top for seven
consecutive years. Although he has retired from the basketball team,
Dalupan still heads the PE department of the university that his
father founded.
He
thought he was through with college basketball and should concentrate
on the Crispa playoffs when the Ateneo beseeched him to make a Blue
Eagles' renaissance in the NCAA possible. It was an offer he couldn't
refuse. The Atenean in a man, 'tis said, dies hard. Besides, it was
while on a tour with the Ateneo team that Baby Dalupan met the
charming Lourdes Gaston at a party in Iloilo. They have been married
27 years and have eight children, seven girls and a boy, who has also
caught the basketball hug and is playing for Crispa in the current
amateur series.
The
coach's family are the fans, admits Mrs. Dalupan, who teaches English
Lit at the San Carlos seminary. Do they have a choice but he? She
thinks the coach cannot do without basketball. “He's the restless
type. He gets impossible when he has nothing to do,” Mrs. Dalupan
says.
Saturdays
and Sundays when his mind is not taken up by the caging game, Baby
Dalupan indulges on betting into horses. Does basketball pay big
money? Yes, Dalupan says, if you're coaching a champion team.
A
champion team also gives fat salaries to its players, if it knows
what's good for it. Such an operation is clearly not for the thin of
pocketbook. But of course, money is the one thing that has never gone
out of style in Philippine basketball, even before the PBA came
about.
Because
the team owner spends a huge amount of money, the 53-year-old Crispa
coach feels he owes it to the Floros to produce a squad in the best
of its elements that would fight harder than the next two teams
combined.
“Whenever
we lose a game,” says Dalupan. “I have dinner with Danny and talk
with him about the previous game, why we lost, who didn't play at
par, kung may kalokohan. Danny
is not just a manager who doles out the money. He contributes a lot
to the team. The boys can approach him anytime. He visits them and
shows the video of our past plays and then everybody gets into the
discussion. We talk as a whole team, not him as a manager and me as a
coach.”
You
cannot tell by one look at the frail, quiet coach sitting beside the
plump, beaming manager in the Crispa bench, if the team is winning or
losing, Baby Dalupan can be cool in defeat and sizzling in victory.
Sometimes,
he has an inkling of what's about to happen. A religious man, the
Jesuit-educated coach leads his ballplayers at prayers in the dugouts
before a game. When the boys are quartered, as they were during the
past two conference championship rounds, he goes with them to Sunday
church. “Ang gaan ng loob ko pag kasama silang lahat.”
he confides. “Pero
pag kulang kahit isa lang, may kaha ako.” Not
only does he believe in prayers, he has a lucky shirt. “This is the
same shirt I wore during the three games that we won,” he
remembers. Crispa is a superstitious team, he smiles.
“I've
been lucky,” he adds. He had extraordinarily skilled cagers in the
key positions, from Mann to Co to Fabiosa. He had the full confidence
of the club owners. And, he continues, it happened to be his time.
The trouble is he has been a consistently good coach his career. Does
he mean to say, a fellow can be consistently lucky?
“You
know, every tournament is a challenge,” he answers. “When the
other team complained that referee was too partial to us we couldn't
help but win, I felt hurt. I thought that's not true. Now we're
proved that we could do it again because we're a better team.”
The
proud team owners are now wearing championship on their chests and
have started calling their textile mill outputs, C-shirts.
Understand, 'C' is for Crispa. 'C' is for Champons. Goodbye to the
“T”.
The
players are still on a holiday, savoring the delicious taste of being
Number One. That last league had been tough at their guts but now
that it's over it's a lot of fun because the rewards consist of a
bonus, a trip an a great deal of prestige.
In the
PBA, you're paid to win, says Baby Dalupan. To his eternal credit, he
gave his employees their money's worth last year. Three tiltles and
the best overall win-loss record. Will he give it a thought if
another team offered to double his present salary? He can't coach any
other, he swears. For him, nothing can be a greater high than a
victory ride three times on the shoulders of his Crispa Denims. And,
Baby that's beautiful.
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