Austria, Cone trace roots to Quezon

It’s a well-known fact that San Miguel Beer coach Leo Austria is from Sariaya, Quezon, but not too many realize that Barangay Ginebra coach Tim Cone also has roots in the province. So when the Beermen faced Ginebra in Game 2 of the PBA Philippine Cup Finals in Lucena last Sunday, the opposing coaches had a sentimental homecoming of sorts.

Austria, who turns 59 on March 14, spoke to the huge crowd before the tip-off and thanked his provincemates for supporting the PBA. Cone, 59, had a reunion with his Grade 5 classmate from Baler Elementary School the day before and met her family. The classmate brought a class photo to show Cone who stood out in the picture as the only foreigner. Some years back, Cone was reunited with another Baler classmate who sought him out in Manila.

Cone was born in Oregon and came to the Philippines when he was nine years old with his parents Earl and Doodie and a sister. His father worked in a logging company in Baler where Cone attended Grade 5 classes in the public elementary school. At that time, the medium of instruction was English. Cone eventually enrolled at the International School (IS) of Manila then returned to the US at 18 to spend two years at Menlo College in California before finishing at George Washington University in Washington, D. C. 

After college graduation, Cone worked in a bank in San Francisco then moved back to Manila, thinking of writing a novel, at 24. While in San Francisco, Cone was introduced to coaching in small leagues. He was a basketball player in high school and college and grew to love the game with a passion.

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“When I was in high school, my mom caught me playing hookie one day,” said Cone. “So my penalty was I had to give up either soccer or basketball. I decided to stick with basketball.”

Back in Manila in 1988, Cone coached his alma mater IS to a league championship, beating Clark Air Force in the final. It was a portent of things to come for Cone as IS, a huge underdog, had an enrolment of less than 300 compared to Clark’s over 2,000. Meanwhile, Cone’s mother played bridge with Alaska CEO Fred Uytengsu’s mother and were close friends so their families often got together. Uytengsu also went to IS and is a few years older than Cone. Since Alaska was in the PBA, Cone used to give unsolicited advice to Uytengsu on how to run the team. At that time, Turo Valenzuela was Alaska’s coach. Then, Bogs Adornado took over the helm and later, team manager Joel Aquino on an interim basis. Cone had become a TV analyst for the PBA with Vintage’s Bobong Velez and was invited by Uytengsu to join the Alaska team as a consultant. In 1989, Cone was named Alaska coach – the start of a celebrated career that continues up to this day.

Cone is the PBA’s longest tenured coach and the winningest in history with 19 championships under his belt and two Grand Slams with Alaska and Purefoods. In the Governors Cup last season, Cone led his third PBA team Ginebra to its first title as coach. At Ginebra, Cone works with assistant coaches Richard del Rosario, Olsen Racela, Freddie Abuda and Kirk Collier.

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“Richard comes up with these brilliant ideas on adjustments and I think he’s a really underrated coach,” he said. “Kirk came back from Korea and we’ve made him a full-time assistant coach who gets involved in game-planning, strategy and tactics. He’s not just a skills development coach. What we like about Kirk is he doesn’t work with individuals, he works with groups of guys in three-on-threes and four-on-fours. The problem in working with individuals is during a game, they do things that they’re trained to do individually. With Kirk, guys are trained to do things as a team.”

Among the Ginebra players, Cone singled out Japeth Aguilar for making big strides in improving his game this season. “With Japeth, you focus on the things he does well,” he said. “In matching up against JuneMar (Fajardo), for instance, he’s adjusted his shots to six to eight feet from the basket because if you’re going against a guy like JuneMar, a close-range shot suddenly becomes a low percentage shot.” Cone said Aguilar’s father Peter was once his player at Alaska. “Peter could shoot the lights out,” he went on. “I remember playing Peter in a huge frontline with Alex Araneta and Dong Polistico like Triple Towers. So I’ve coached both father and son.”