Love, Sports and Basketball

I grew up an athlete. I think I pretty much played every sport I have ever wanted to play. In Grade School I played football (soccer) and softball. I loved horses and my parents enrolled me in riding school and was an equestrian for a while. I enjoyed the water and loved to swim, in Grade 7 I made it to our varsity swimming team. I also joined our volleyball varsity team for about 2 years. Swimming was the sport I loved so I did that until about 1st year college. In college, I joined the Badminton team and competed in our school intramurals for almost all the sports. I was an athlete.



But one of my favourite sports to watch is basketball. My dad used to take me to so many basketball games when I was a little girl. We used to cheer for the De La Salle University basketball team even before I was in La Salle. I knew the cheers and the alma mater song before even going to school there. I watched so many PBA games and would cheer the hardest for San Miguel (Ginebra, San Miguel/Petron, Purefoods/San Mig Coffee) and of course any team that my friends would play in. I loved the game. I loved how intense the games were, how the players worked as a team and even the crazy fans.

I also am my dad's number 1 fan. I critique him even while the game is going on. Haha! Sometimes I send him a text about how he's doing or how good he looks on TV, while he's on air. When he would call after the game, we would talk about how the teams played, what they did wrong and what they did good at. I loved that we have a bond over a sport we both love.

It was no surprise I married a basketball player. When Mark met my Pappy, he said he was a little starstruck (haha!), but he and my Pop talked about basketball a lot. I'm so glad that my Pappy finally was able to have a boy in the family, who was less emotional about basketball than his daughter.

Now, our Philippine Team is competing in the FIBA world championship league in Spain and I couldn't be any prouder to be Filipino than I am now.  These guys are giving it their all, even if everyone else was doubting them. Our guys are playing with all their heart and now the world can see that even if we are small, we deserve to be competing with the world's best.

The past 3 games, we showed them what we can do. Gabe Norwood's dunks against Argentina's Scola was amazing and it got us all jumping up and down screaming! Jimmy Alapag's 3 point shots were spot on and showed us that height doesn't really matter. Junmar Fajardo is playing amazing defense. Andre Blatche is playing with all his heart, even playing through pain, just like a true Filipino. Our whole team is coming together and with what we have seen them do, they are ready to win! We believe so much in our Team Gilas and the whole country is rooting for them. We play Puerto Rico tonight and I am pretty sure that we will play even harder and get that win we deserve.

Laban Pilipinas! Puso!!!

Besos,

Tina