The Athletic Mind: Oops, They Did It Again
by Sid Ventura

What are we to make of this latest rule that the UAAP Board has come up with? I don’t know, but for me it’s just wrong on so many levels. Forget (if you can) about the suspicious circumstances surrounding its implementation; that’s worth another article altogether. Let’s just analyze the rule itself without worrying about Soc Rivera’s outstanding debt. I know that will be as difficult as, say, figuring out why the acronym for Nicanor Reyes Educational Foundation is FERN and not NREF, but try to indulge me here.

Anyway, here are the questions I asked myself: The rule was created to prevent piracy of players. How do you define piracy?

I love a post I saw online last week. It best summarizes my argument against all this piracy talk: piracy presupposes ownership. Can a tertiary institution lay claim to a high school student, even if the high school is under that tertiary institution? Granted, there is some sort of tacit understanding that a UAAP high school’s senior counterpart will have first crack at a prized recruit from its junior team. One may even further argue that the ideal scenario would be for the junior team to be a feeder of players to the senior team.

But we’re forgetting one very important thing here: a college may own the high school for which the students play, but it can never own the students themselves. I say a student has all the right to choose where to go to college, with no conditions attached. If a school can’t convince him to stay, then that’s a knock on their program. Any program or a worth its salt should not need coercion to convince its players to stay.

Also, what happens when there are no recruitment efforts, either publicly or discreetly, done by a program, but the player himself declares his intention to go to that program when he reaches college? Can the original school still invoke this “piracy” rule if for some reason it doesn’t want its player to matriculate in the other school? Lots of gray area here.

Assuming a senior team does have control over its junior team, does the league really need this rule right now? How many “acts of piracy” have actually occurred over the last few years?

I did a little research. In five of the last six seasons, the best UAAP junior player –the one player most likely to be “pirated” - has actually opted to stay home and either play for the seniors team or simply enroll as a regular student: Michael Guidaben (Ateneo, 2000), June Cortez (UST, 2001), Marcy Arellano (UE, 2002), Ken Barracoso (Ateneo, 2003), and Miggy Maniego (UPIS, 2005). The only exception was in 2004 when Julius Porlaje, the MVP from the UE Pages, didn’t move on to the Warriors.

In fact, from 2001 to 2006, you can easily count the number of ex-UAAP junior players who decided to play for a rival UAAP school in college: Jemal Vizcarra (Adamson to UST), Obet Carlos (DLSZ to UP), Migs De Asis (DLSZ to UP), Martin Reyes (DLSZ to UP), and Dan Salvador (DLSZ to UP).

A grand total of five players. Of that five, how many were actually “pirated”? To my knowledge, none. Carlos went to UP for purely academic reasons, while De Asis, Reyes and Salvador simply went to the program where they had the best chance of making varsity. (Honestly, though, I’m not 100% sure about Vizcarra, although it’s safe to assume he wouldn’t have wanted to suit up for Adamson in 2001, given that the Falcons were coming off a 0-14 season.)

And over the same time period, there were actually a whole lot more juniors players who stayed put. Aside from the six MVPs, there’s Japs Cuan, Luoreck Tong and Oscar Crisostomo from UST; Vicmel Epres, Marvin Cruz, Jacob Manlapaz and Andrew Marfori from UPIS; Simon Atkins from DLSZ; Leo Canuday from Adamson; and Macky Escalona, Martin Quimson, Johann Uichico, and Jai Reyes from Ateneo. That’s 13 players. And I’m sure I’m missing a few others, which in any case only further strengthens my point.

Cuan, Manlapaz, Marfori, Atkins, Canuday, Uichico, and Reyes were all Mythical Five members, by the way.

My point is, I really don’t see any pattern developing here that would sound off any alarm bells. In fact, if anything, I see the exact opposite. For the period studied, the statistics show that a player of a UAAP high school, assuming he is good enough, is much more likely to stay at home for college, and this includes a vast majority of the so-called blue chip prospects. And even if a player chooses to go elsewhere within the league to play college ball, the chances that he was “pirated” are close to nil.

In fact, if you look at the big picture, over the past six seasons, the number of players in the UAAP who came from UAAP high schools isn’t even a tenth of the total population of players.

So why do we need this new rule then? Obviously, “piracy” of junior players is a rare occurrence within the league. Heck, simply seeing a junior player eventually suit up in the seniors division is a rare occurrence within the league.

Okay, lest I forget, the new rule covers all sports, not just basketball. So what? There are only seven other sports in the boys’ division and two in the girls’ division. We don’t have junior football, junior baseball, girls’ basketball, or girls’ football. Junior volleyball was introduced only recently. And participation in most disciplines is about as sporadic as a 7AM calculus class. In fact, only juniors’ basketball is participated in by all eight member schools.

If there are any outstanding prospects in the other junior sports (and there are, don’t get me wrong), I’m guessing the incidences of piracy aren’t that high. Definitely not enough to prompt the implementation of such a radical new rule. If you call that piracy, I don’t even know what to call that underground business thriving in Metrowalk.

Assuming further that there are enough incidences of “piracy” to merit a rule change, is imposing a one-year residency the right thing to do?

In the long run, no. This will only push the blue chip players to take a serious look at the rival NCAA, which is still wanting in star power and will most definitely roll out the red carpet for these kids. The San Bedas and Letrans will now have a new bargaining chip when making their recruiting pitch: playing for us is hassle-free, with no need for “approval” of any sort. Even worse, a really good player might not even want to suit up for a school’s junior team, knowing fully well that he runs the risk of tying himself down till he’s 21. Either way, it severely limits a player’s options and gives rival leagues more leverage.

Okay, assuming even further, why did the Board decide to make the rule take effect immediately, considering the new school year is two weeks away, the new season is six weeks away, and most teams are already finalizing their line-ups?

Damned if I know. That will remain one of the great mysteries of the UAAP, right up there with, “How come Renren Ritualo never won an MVP?”