Winners never quit!
WINNERS never give up.
PBA star John Paul Erram and reigning Miss Cagayan de Oro Katrina Acaylar were born of these words to live by when they shared their life inspiring stories to more than 50 parents during the 4th A Team Parent’s Forum at the AVR 6 in Xavier University’s main campus.
For the 29-year-old Erram, he was in tears when he recalls his struggles and paused every teary moment of his life.
All he ever wanted was his family to be whole.
The 6-foot-8 legitimate center for the Blackwater Elite grew up with a broken family and he needed to survive and overcome whatever comes his way.
Erram, now a family man, admitted that he could never fix the past, but it became his inspiring story that turned him to what he is now.
He grew up in Manila with his father, who was a soldier, and he was 12 years old when he moved to Dayawan in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental where his father was forced to take him along with his siblings due to his new assignment back then.
He had 10 siblings and he never saw his biological mother when he was two years old.
“I have not seen my mom since I was two years old and I had step siblings,” said Erram.
He needed to break from this, until basketball showed him the way to step up on his own and led him to meet his so-called “angel” Arvin Martinez, who was coaching for Pilgrim Christian College High School before becoming coach then college sports coordinator of Xavier University.
Erram finished high school at Pilgrim where he was offered a scholarship with a free dorm inside the school.
When Martinez was absorbed at XU, Erram was then recruited for the Crusaders but for only a year.
His name was rising when XU’s sister university recruited him to suit up for the Ateneo de Manila
A to Z, could be the best interpreter of what I’m talking about.
My thought, my sensitivity, my honest-to-goodness brutality altogether run deeper into his writing veins.
“Never mind the style, the flowers and the bees. Get possibly all the solid facts and details and you will never come home boy a beaten child,” I used to tell Jaime, my partner in crime young enough to be my son. Be the best? Then, persevere and keep that roaring flames in your heart.
Sing as though no one can hear you. Laugh uncontrollably. Never regret anything that makes you smile. My favorite lines from the rock ‘n roll world of Steven Tallarico.
And be a sportswriter. “The best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be,” as legendary wrestler Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart would love to project himself atop the ring.
The one with the Holy Grail always ready to be among the anointed grandsons of the great old Procs Maslog. (Want to know him?)
Of course, do not forget. Yeah boy, don’t you ever forget.
When loneliness sets in, when you got rain in your heart or when you’re out in the cold like the now brothers-less Barry Gibb from Bee Gees , also try to write a little song in your spare time.