Big goals, thankless tasks
Erika Dy doesn’t hide behind vague generalities when she talks about the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas’ (SBP) goals for the national program.
Olympic appearances for the four national teams—the men’s and women’s 5×5 and 3×3 squads.
Top 16 in the world, too.
And a recent stumble on the international front hasn’t dimmed her optimism.
“We do believe that we have a chance to get to the Olympics for all four teams. We have carved pathways for them,” Dy told the Philippine Sportswriters’ Association Forum on Tuesday. And despite Gilas Pilipinas quarterfinal exit in the Fiba (international basketball federation) Asia Cup, the SBP executive director is confident “we’re still on pace with our goal of making it to the Olympics.”
Those big goals, however, are anchored on the seemingly little tasks that hardly get noticed—the SBP machinery that’s working in the background to make the program run not just successfully, but consistently as well.
Helping refs, too
“We have what we call our institutional support, where we try to provide as much help as we can to our members, to our stakeholders, to the local Philippine basketball community,” the hardworking official said.
“And then, of course, we also have to focus on our grassroots. That’s why we hired Coach Norman as a grassroots head,” said Dy, referring to Norman Black, the Southeast Asian Games coach who joined her at the Forum.
“And under the grassroots program, we have talent identification. We have our coaches’ academy under Coach Jong Uichico, where we try to develop more competitive coaches to teach our youth.”
Dy also cited the technical academy, where the SBP hopes to develop world-class game officials.
“Basketball is habit-forming. And if referees at the lower level do not make the right calls, our kids might be picking up the wrong habits,” she said. “So we also want a pathway for our referees to be Olympians also, or World Cup referees. And a part of that … is to get basketball fans to respect our referees.”
“I know it’s like chicken-and-egg, where if they perform well or if they officiate well, then they will get more respect. But sometimes, it’s difficult for them to make the right calls when they have people screaming in their ears with words that are very hurtful.”
All that support beneath the surface is what Dy hopes will push the country’s national team forward.
“The goal for our national teams, we want to be on top in Asia and top 16 in the world,” she said. “The way Fiba tranches its rankings, it’s like by eights. The first eight is the first tier. And in the World Cup, there are 32 teams and we have to be in the better half of the World Cup teams, so we picked 16 as our target.
“We want to be 16 out of 215 federations. It’s a tough job, but I think it’s doable because our 3×3 women’s is already there,” Dy said.
