Coach of the moment

San Miguel Beer is six wins away from capturing its first-ever ABL championship but coach Leo Austria isn’t counting his chickens before they’re hatched. He’s clearly the coach of the moment in the San Miguel hierarchy (which includes Ginebra San Miguel’s Alfrancis Chua, San Mig Coffee’s Tim Cone and Petron’s Olsen Racela), entering the best-of-five semifinals against the Sports Rev Thailand Slammers with an incredible 16-game winning streak. The semifinals begin Thursday at the Ynares Sports Arena.

“I’m a low-profile guy,” said the soft-spoken Austria, in his first year as the Beermen’s head coach. “My job is to motivate my players to go out there and win a championship. I listen to what my players suggest. They may be great players but I’m the coach, I call the shots and make the decisions. If we work together, we can make good things happen.”

Austria, 55, broke into coaching in 1998 with Chowking in the PBL. He previously played in 394 games for Shell and Pepsi in the PBA from 1985 to 1993. Austria’s first taste of basketball glory came when he played on the Philippine team that captured the Asian Youth championship in Manila in 1982. That squad was coached by Ron Jacobs and Austria’s teammates were Joseph Uichico, Jun Tan, Tonichi Yturri, Elmer Reyes, Alfie Almario, Rey Cuenco, Teddy Alfarero, Richard Mendoza, Louie Brill, Hector Calma and Derick Pumaren.

“I learned my basics from coach Ron, offense and defense,” said Austria, a point guard as a player. “I’ll never forget the game where we beat China for the Asian Youth title. I think I scored five of our first seven points. Coach Ron gave me my break in basketball.” The Lyceum standout went on to play in the PBL’s forerunner PABL where he was MVP in the 1984 Ambassador’s Cup.

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After hanging up his sneakers, Austria called the shots for Chowking and later, Shark Energy Drink and Welcoat in the PBL. He won PBL titles with Shark and Welcoat, the most memorable of which was in the 2002 Challenge Cup where his Welcoat stars were Marc Pingris, Rommel Adducul, Eddie Laurel, Ronald Tubid and Paul Artadi. Then, Austria was named Shell coach to replace John Moran in the PBA in 2004. He took Shell to third place in the Fiesta Conference before the team was disbanded. Austria returned to the PBA on the Welcoat bench in 2006 but left after two seasons.

Austria has coached Adamson University in six of the last seven UAAP seasons, taking the Falcons to the Final Four thrice. In the ABL last season, Austria was recruited by San Miguel Corp. director of sports Noli Eala to backstop Beermen head coach Bobby Parks. The partnership nearly delivered a title for San Miguel as the Beermen lost the championship clincher to the Indonesia Warriors. When Parks fell ill, Austria was elevated to the top post and has worked wonders with the Beermen.

“What we like about coach Leo is his dedication,” said Eala. “Last Friday, he coached San Miguel in Kuala Lumpur until 11 p.m. because the game went into triple overtime then took a 1:30 a.m. flight to Manila after a one-hour taxi drive to the airport. He landed in Manila at about 6 a.m. and at 12 noon, he was in the San Juan Arena for Adamson’s game against St. Benilde in the Filoil Flying V Cup. But aside from his dedication to the game, he’s extremely capable. He’s a master at designing plays off a timeout and showed it again in that triple overtime win over Malaysia. In regulation and the overtime periods, he called timeout with seconds left and designed plays. Every time, we got an easy shot from a layup or an open three-pointer. Coach Leo is also good at motivating his players. Management is very happy with his development and performance.”

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Austria said it’s too early to celebrate. There’s a big bull’s-eye target in the back of San Miguel as the ABL’s No. 1 seed and the road to the title won’t be easy. The next step is to overcome the Slammers in the semifinals. If the Beermen bundle out Thailand, they’ll face either Indonesia or Malaysia in the best-of-five finals.

“What you like about our team is the guys never give up,” said Austria. “Imagine, we played Malaysia in their homecourt and it was a no-bearing game for us because we were already assured of the No. 1 seed. Justin (Williams) skidded in a dive for the loose ball and hurt his knee so we rested him the entire second half and the three overtimes. The calls were terrible. We could’ve just given up but we didn’t. It wasn’t just about preserving our winning streak, it was our pride and character. Nobody wanted to lose. So he hung in there and managed to win with guys like Leo (Avenido), Paolo (Hubalde), Asi (Taulava), Val (Acuna) and Brian (Williams).”

Austria said if San Miguel makes it to the finals, either defending champion Indonesia or Malaysia will be a tough obstacle. The Warriors are coached by American Todd Purves and led by Fil-Am Stanley Pringle, imports Steve Thomas and Chris Daniels and Filipino import Jerick Canada. Malaysia is coached by Filipino Ariel Vanguardia whose starters show US playing credentials – imports Gavin Edwards and Marcus Hubbard and Fil-foreigners Julius Armon, Mo Tautuaa and 5-11 Justin Melton of the Gilas cadets squad.