The SMB-SAC Awards is for the parents

In all my years of covering local sports, I’ve met all sorts of sports parents--the pushy ones, the kind ones, the wannabe coaches and the frustrated superstars who are living their dreams through their kids.

There are parents who’d pick a fight with anybody, reporters included, for every imagined slight, while there are those who befriend everybody because it’s just in their nature to be nice. They know, too, that whatever they do, it reflects on their kids. If they love to pick fights with officials, refs learn to say, “mao diay.”

Over the years, too, I’ve learned that though the San Miguel Brewery-Sportswriters Association of Cebu Sports Awards is for the gifted athletes, it’s really a moment for the proud parents. While they are used to seeing their son excel in their chosen field, it is a rare experience for them to see their kids getting recognized, not by sports officials, but by the people who’ve seen them at their best, and sometimes at their worst, on the field.

And do you know which sort of parents are usually found accompanying their kids in our SMBSAC Awards? Not the pushy the ones who pick a fight with anyone but guys like Doc, who at one time, told me that not only they give their school coach a free hand, they even encourage him to scold their kids in front of the parents if needed, “Go ahead coach, pang-kasab-i na sila.”

There’s Tita, too, who instead of pestering reporters’ ears of how the other team cheated in one Palaro a decade go, instead encourage them to talk the other party instead and get the details straight from them.

There are others too, who are great examples of sporting parents who I regularly see in the SAC Awards, but I only cited the two because their kids are no longer active in the local scene.

Why is that? Why do you see majority of a certain set of parents in the SMB-SAC Awards?

Perhaps because while you can hire the best coaches for your kids, character is something that can’t be taught and sometimes, when you are with your peers, people with the same skills sets, it’s character that makes you excel.

Of course, this is not to generalize that those with pushy parents have awful characters, this is merely to point out how sportswriters see the kids through their parents.

Deliberation for the awards is strictly based on the athlete’s achievement but as a writer, I can’t help but feel happy too, to see parents rewarded by their child getting recognized.

Because the SAC Awards is for them, too, right San Miguel?

While they are used to seeing their son excel, it is rare experience to see their kids recognized...