A Hapee CYBL

For today, I’m going to bend over a bit from Bleacher Talk’S “policies” when I talk about the Cebu Youth Basketball League (CYBL). I normally don’t openly discuss projects which Bleacher Talk directly manages, but this will have to be an exception to the rule and I think you’ll see why.

For some time now, we have always talked about the need to develop basketball among the youth. We’re loaded with a lot of basketball activities at the collegiate and commercial levels, but the youth scene has been very quiet. But when you sum it all up, it doesn’t make sense. We’re top heavy with activities, but the base or foundation isn’t aligned with the top.

To cut a long story short, we just went out and did it. And so the CYBL was born. It sets itself to be a venue for developmental activities for basketball teams in the Under-15 and Under-12 age groups.

The basketball scene for boys under 15 years old is relatively quiet, and it has become our dream to keep them active so we can develop age-group basketball, a crucial part of total basketball development. The only real basketball activity that these age groups have is the Milo Best Center basketball tournament from August to September. Another activity is the Futures Basketball League in December. There is thus a big vacuum of activity from January to July. Somewhere in between, these school-based teams go out on their own to look for exhibition games or tournaments to join with the sole purpose of keeping themselves busy. It is accepted by all that there is no alternative to the real thing: basketball games at the competitive level of a tournament or a basketball league.

With this as a backdrop, we then rushed to get together a pool of coaches who we knew shared the same sentiments and could make quick decisions with the support of their school heads and basketball program managers. It was necessary to meet, decide and act on short notice since the school-year was already approaching its last two months and we needed to launch and end the CYBL’s first activity before the boys take their fourth quarter exams in mid-March.

My first stop was to informally advise the CESAFI about the CYBL through Commissioner Felix Tiukinhoy Jr. Since most of the CYBL teams are CESAFI members, using this network would not only be proper, but strategic as well when looking at the long term. It was no longer surprising to find out that their responses were positive. Our next step will be to reach out to all the other CESAFI member schools and explain the why’s behind the CYBL.

We made it clear to all coaches that the main objective of the CYBL’s first activity was to just simply “get together” and form an initial CYBL group. If we didn’t do it now, the only other time to do so would be in October after the Milo Best tournament. By starting now, we’ll also then have the summer spiced with other CYBL activities that we plan to line up.

Amidst all the rush in getting the group together, Hapee Toothpaste understood our unorthodox-cum-overnight approach and is supporting the CYBL’s opening tournament which is now called the CYBL-Hapee Cup. We’d like to thank Sportsman Jack Huang for being patient and for understanding the situation in which we found ourselves.

We would also like to thank the University of San Carlos North Campus (USC NC), the University of San Carlos South Campus (USC SC), Sacred Heart School-Jesuit, University of Cebu (UC), Don Bosco College (DB), PAREF Springdale and the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) for joining the CYBL’s kick-off conference or tournament.

We set up two age groups: the Midget and Mini divisions. The Midget division (and they’re no midgets) are for boys born in 1992, 1993 and 1994. The Mini division is for boys born in 1995, 1996 and 1997. We had a soft opening when we UC defeated USPF in a game that served as preliminary game at the recently-concluded CESAFI Partners Cup.

Now that it’s off and running, we can already see what the CYBL can become further down the road. This is only the start of bigger things to come, and we are confident that we will reach our dreams of helping the sport among these kids.

The long term dream is to serve as a developmental program for the CESAFI. CESAFI member-schools are known more for their collegiate and high school divisions. What we would like to achieve is to serve as a program that will enhance or “complete” the over-all basketball programs of these schools: from the collegiate all the way down to the grade school level. There are already a few examples of local hardcourt heroes starting their careers at the Mini level, growing up through the Midgets, dressing up as Juniors players before capping their student-athlete days by donning the jersey of just one school. Nino Ramirez (USC), Enrico Llanto (USC) and all those Milo SBP/Pasarelle veterans are examples of this unique loyalty feat. In Manila , the more popular examples are the likes of Ateneo’s Enrico Villanueva, Larry Fonacier, the Reyes brothers and more.

Since there’s no stopping our wild dreams for now, what we would like to see in the future is a CESAFI Opening Ceremony that will feature a collegiate team walking hand-in-hand with a 10-year old player from the school’s CYBL Mini team.

But before anything else, we’re all have to start somewhere and I’d like to believe that we’ve made a pretty good start. I’m also confident that it has the potential to last. But we’ll need everyone’s support. Let’s all help each other to build the CYBL. In the end, we’ll all be a Hapee CYBL.

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Time-out: Happy birthday to my brother Henry! >>> You can reach me at [email protected] or 0923-342-8193 (for SunCell subscribers).