BEFORE Gilas Pilipinas, there's the Northern Cement squad pioneering a program that put together promising young talents and well-chosen naturalized players, guided by a foreign basketball mind with short- and long-term targets.
The innovative, novel program produced great results with the team twice winning the Jones Cup, snaring a PBA title, getting an honor to play in the World Inter-Club and, up to present, remaining as the last team to win the Asian championship.
Those accomplishments would be long remembered, likely to stand the test of time - thanks for a large part to its patron.
PBA Hall of Famer Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco, the man behind the program, passed away Tuesday evening, just six days after turning 85.
Moments after his passing, the Philippine sports world flooded social media with offers of prayers and expressions of deep sympathies and profound condolences as they mourned the passing of the San Miguel Corp. chairman, among the biggest backers of Filipino athletes.
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In basketball, he's famously known as the godfather of the national team that brought home the crown from the Asian championship in 1986 Ipoh, Malaysia.
That same NCC team carved a niche in the PBA in scoring a four-game sweep of the Manila Beer squad for the 1985 Reinforced Conference title.
And from that highly successful national team program, Cojuangco later culled the players to form the core group of what would become a San Miguel Beer team with a dynastic reign in the PBA spiked by a grand slam feat in 1989.
And there's hardly a surprise as to his induction into the PBA Hall of Fame, same batch with his trusted NCC coach Ron Jacobs in 2007, to be followed two years later by their NCC babies Hector Calma, Allan Caidic, Samboy Lim and Ricardo Brown.
That program also produced future PBA coaches, including Leo Austria, Jong Uichico, Pido Jarencio and many others.
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Many other sports benefited from his support including equestrian, bowling, golf, volleyball and boxing.
As a sportsman, politician or businessman, Cojuangco was known for his objectives to uplift the lives of Filipinos and to contribute to a stronger national development.
He's a great loss. (SB)
