A pitch for Carlos ‘The Big Difference’ Loyzaga
Credit to Author: EDDIE G. ALINEA| Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2019 16:21:12 +0000
Sometime last year, while covering the Philippine basketball team’s preparation for the fifth window of the Asian qualifier for the FIBA World Cup, your OUTSIDER had the privileged of talking to Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas president Al Panlilio about the association’s future plans for the nation’s favorite pastime.
In the course of our conversation, I mentioned to him, in the presence of former Pasig congressman Ronnie Puno among others, another SBP high-ranking official, the need for our own Carlos, “The Big Difference” Loyzaga to be enshrined in the FIBA Hall of Fame, which has long been overdue.
Panlilio answered me that Loyzaga’s becoming a FIBA Hall of Famer has already been in the works and that the country’s governing body in basketball has already formed a body to make sure that Caloy will be nominated the next time FIBA is scheduled to induct a new batch, which is this year.
I never had any contact with Panlilio or any member of his SBP board since then until early last week I came across a FIBA story about eight players and three coaches comprising the Class of 2019 that will be elevated to the Hall.
The 2019 Class, headed by NBA great Alonzo Mourning of the USA, will be enshrined into Hall during a special ceremony in Beijing, China, on August 30, on the eve of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 jump off, doesn’t include the name of Loyzaga.
The first thing SBP could’ve impressed on FIBA had it, indeed, nominated Caloy, is that he is for real. God made him stand 6-foot-3 inches and he took care of the rest.
He played at center but can also play as ably and well at guard and forward positions. As one who manned the slot, it was not so much his ceiling as his asset, but, his “abilidad,” timing, ability to box out the enemies under the boards enabling him to outmaneuver, outposition, outjump his opponents.
He earned the moniker “The Big Difference” during his more than two-decade long career playing basketball because he was big, not only in size but the way he played. He spelled the difference in many title victories of the Philippines in the Asian Games and Asian Basketball Confederation (now FIBA Asia) tournaments as well as the honors and respect the country gained in he Olympics and world fronts.
Caloy served as cog in the Philippine campaign in the 1954 World Championship held in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil where the country brought home the bronze medal, the highest fashioned out by any Asian country in the biggest basketball event outside of the Olympic Games.
He even outdid himself in that meet by emerging one of the three top scorers in the entire tournament with an average 16.4 per game next to Uruguay’s Oscars Moglia (18.6) and Carl Ridd of Canada (18.2)
Caloy’s feat earned for him a slot in the world team along with Kirby Minter of the United States, Moglia, Zenny de Azevedo and Wlamir Marques, both of the host country Brazil, an honor only one other Asian, Yao Ming, would duplicate five decades later.
Reason why many believe that Loyzaga should be recognized as “the greatest Filipino and Asian,” for that matter, to ever play the game, deserving a place in the HoF.
How good a player Loyzaga was can be gauge that when he hang up his no. 41 uniform in 1964, the Philippines lost its in supremacy in the sport his countrymen love most. The Filipino basketeers, once the apple of the eyes of Asians, likewise, lost their slots in the Olympic Games where they last saw action more than six decades ago in 1972,
A two-time Olympian, King Caloy powered he Philippines to a ninth place finish in 1952 in Helsinki and seventh, the country’s third highest, in Melbourne in 1956.
The first time Loyzaga wore the country’s red, white and blue colors at a tender age 21, he led the Filipino cagers’ gold medal triumph in the inaugural staging of the Asian Games in 1951 in New Delhi, the same way he did in the subsequent title defending campaign in 1954 in Manila, 1958 in Tokyo and in 1962 in Jakarta.
Before losing the Asiad Crown Jewel, the Philippines, again starring the beanpole product of sandlot basketball in Teresa in Sampaloc District of Manila, shifted its supremacy in the Asian Basketball Confederation, a regional organization, which, like the Asian Games, Filipino sports leaders helped established.
Like the Asiad, Caloy and teammates ruled the First ABC right in front of their countrymen in 1960, defended the title the next time around in Taipei in 1963 before relinquishing it in 1965 in Kuala Lumpur. Loyzaga. again, was responsible for the Philippines’ regaining the title in 1967, this time as head coach. He was the assistant coach when the country again won it in 1973 here in Manila.
Caloy’s combined six gold medal harvest in the Asiad and ABC as a player and his pair a coach more than eclipsed thee feats of some who’ve already earned their place in the Hall.
Caloy’s first love, actually was football, a sport his father Joaquin’s forte having served many national teams during the Far Eastern Games, precursor of the now Asian Games from 1913 to 1934.
The post A pitch for Carlos ‘The Big Difference’ Loyzaga appeared first on The Manila Times Online.