Why ban foreign student-athletes?

Hackles were raised again by the alleged attempt to pass a new rule in the NCAA banning foreign players recently. The league’s Policy Board and Management Committee have supposedly begun studying such a proposal. Obviously, the goal would be to supposedly even the playing field after teams like San Beda College and Jose Rizal University have had success with foreign reinforcements.

Let’s look at the facts. San Beda won three consecutive titles starting 2006 with Sam Ekwe, who has since gone on to play in Europe.

JRU has been in the Final Four with John Njei and a healthy Joe Etame. But there were a grand total of four – yes, just four – foreign players in the NCAA seniors basketball season 86 tournament, including this year’s Most Valuable Player, Sudan Daniel. They are not a threat to the security of Filipino players. And besides, San Sebastian College, which won the 2009 title and made it to the Finals again this year, does not have any foreign players.

In effect, for the NCAA, it’s like having a class suit against anyone who is born a foreigner and studying in the Philippines. And the manner in which the supposedly plan was being pushed in a meeting without a quorum to vote on it looks suspicious. Why create a new rule against four people? The NCAA only allows a maximum of two foreign-born players per team, and only one is allowed on the court at any given time. This is messing up the player rotation of the Heavy Bombers, since the more experienced Njei is a guard, while the taller Etame is a center. So no straight-up substitution is possible.

Even if they were recruited expressly for winning sports titles, you’d be treading into the murky waters of guessing someone’s motivation to begin with. Besides, it is an internationally accepted practice to recruit for sports programs that bring in alumni support, rally the school, and boost awareness and enrollment. Besides, it smacks of sour graping, not to mention racism. If varsity basketball were a regulated profession, it might be understandable. But the rules in the PBA, for example, are entirely internal because the league is a private entity.

Student-athletes are amateurs. Banning a student from playing merely based on citizenship is bigotry. How would you feel if you paid your child’s tuition (either outright or through your child’s service to the school) and are denied the rights that any other student is given?

Your child, who is a student of that school, is treated differently from other students who also matriculate there. That isn’t fair at all.

What if other countries whose head coaches have been or are Filipino - Vietnam, Indonesia, Qatar and others - decide to throw them out? What if the Indonesian Basketball League, which has had Filipino imports for each of its teams, decides against having foreigners? Even closer to home, what if the other members of the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) issue a blanket order banning Filipino players? We would raise a howl of unfair labor practices. And to think that college players aren’t even paid salaries.

The players already get the short end of the stick when they don’t perform well. They are vilified in chatrooms and community billboards, and occasionally in the mainstream media. The public knows a lemon when it sees one, and they give them hell.

When the Metropolitan Basketball Association was launched in 1998, it had a rule: anyone born in the Philippines, regardless of citizenship, could play. The following year, with the threat of foreign ringers faking Filipino birth certificates, the MBA rescinded the rule. The only one who qualified that first year was Alex Compton, who has been an upstanding citizen and commercial endorser who has made the Philippines his home, learned the language, and even married a Filipina. Compton was born in the Philippines, though he retained his parents’ US citizenship.

This is simply another instance of punishing success. There have been many foreign players in collegiate basketball in the past. Why only push this rule now? If their success were in a less popular sport, like Koreans wearing their school colors in taekwondo competitions, would we even bother? I don’t think so.

And speaking of the MBA, the league allowed each team to have a maximum of two Filipino-American players per team, with the goal of phasing them out after five years, when they had transferred their knowledge to local-born players. Sadly, it never lived to see that day.

I am a patriot, but I also spoke out against the move to keep coaches like Ron Jacobs and Tim Cone out of the PBA. I believe so much in Filipino talent that I know they can overcome any obstacle in front of them. Look at the rich history of the NCAA itself, how many outstanding little men has it produced, no matter the size and nationality of whoever has played there. A rule against a mere two percent of the population is discriminatory. There are already rules in place limiting their participation, why pile on more?