Remembering the Dragons

It’s been 25 years since the Pampanga Dragons won the first-ever Metropolitan Basketball Association (MBA) national championship. They celebrated the milestone with a reunion in San Fernando Thursday evening organized by team manager and 1976 PBA Rookie of the Year Gil Cortez. The gathering shook loose so many fond memories for those who made it, including this writer. It also illustrated that, no matter how much things can change, they still remain the same.

The games were always exciting: raw talent meeting seasoned experience. So many were able to work in the sport we all loved. For the Dragons, it was Mondragon and the Gonzalez family’s unwavering support, Coach Aric del Rosario’s raspy fire, Ato Agustin’s brilliance, the local talents’ selfless play. We remember the roaring crowds and warm reception at the Bren Guiao Convention Center and, well, everywhere, really. First-time team owners were always torn between winning and the painful expense of bonuses. And it always felt like the Kapampangan way is to keep feeding you to make sure you leave 10 pounds heavier than when you arrived. All of us on the broadcast team miss those days.

We had some funny incidents along the way to coverages. There were still no big hotels in the area, so on our first trip, we were booked in a drive-in motel. I have to say, it was kind of embarrassing to have our names – often three to a room – plastered outside the car port of these rooms. On that very first trip, the motel operator also conveniently forgot to turn off the adult cable and VHS channels in the visiting team’s rooms. No wonder there was something off about how they ran during the games there. Homecourt advantage?

Hotels were our most common unpredictable adventure. Each week brought a new experience. Our hotel in Davao had toilets that were so loud, the whole building could tell which room flushed. One hotel in Pangasinan had worms coming out of the shower, and a swimming pool that left you with a strange slippery sheen on your skin (we never dared ask what it was). In Cagayan de Oro, we had all showered after the games to go to a beach party, only to have one of our courtside reporters load the van with smelly durian without telling us. Often, shower heads were so low, they would hit 6’2” me and 6’6” Danny Francisco in the chest. Beds were almost always too short. Vans, planes, mini buses and cars not made for the unusually large to comfortably fall asleep in. But it was all good fun.

What I do remember most, however, is the sheer joy we all had covering those games. Up where late night met early morning to be at the airport for 5 a.m. flights to the Visayas and Mindanao (Cebu, Bacolod, Iloilo, Aklan, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Surigao, General Santos and City, Koronadal) and long drives to various points in Luzon (Manila, Pasig-Rizal, San Juan, Laguna, Laguna, Pampanga, Pangasinan). It was a tiring but thrilling lifestyle being on the road every week. We were embraced by the local communities everywhere we went, tasted fantastic, diverse food, and made lifelong friends. To this day, trips to those places mean meeting up with friends who have become inextricable parts of our lives. But the MBA’s legacy is that it blazed a path and created a template for other leagues to follow. There would be no Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League, Pilipinas Super League, or other regional leagues if the MBA hadn’t dared. And the Pampanga Dragon will forever be the first true national champions.