”Finish your degree“
With some of Cebu’s biggest stars and coaches in collegiate basketball in attendance, new Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation, Inc. (CESAFI) President Bernard Nicolas Villamor of the Cebu Institute of Technology University (CIT-U) had a different advice for the athletes, one they might not expect to hear during the start of the league’s 18th season this Sunday at the Cebu Coliseum.
“Finish your degree.” With a professional career in basketball now within reach for most with the establishment of new pro leagues like the ABL and the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League, Villamor reminded the athletes of the importance of having a degree.
“CESAFI is not about basketball only, it is important that you also finish your degrees. Athletes have good paths ahead, not just in professional sports,” he said.
Villamor said not all athletes will be lucky enough to pursue a professional career and having a degree is important for them to have a career not related to sports.
Villamor also reminded the athletes not to get too carried away with the competition as their rivals today maybe their teammates or workmates in the future.
“CESAFI is different. There may be a frentic competition among us but when the dust settles, you belong in one community and you maybe collaborating as professionals in the future,” he said.
Villamor added that CESAFI’s decision to drop the practice of fielding foreign players in the 2021-22 season is to give opportunity to locals to have a college education through an athletic scholarship and that the league isn’t singling out foreign players. Villamor also challenged the athletic directors of the different schools to raise the school spirit among the students and to get them to watch the games. “When I was a student, it was really quite a feeling when you sing the alma mater song after the game,” he said, and adding he is hoping the practice could be adopted in the CESAFI. He also shared an experience while watching a CESAFIi volleyball match when the atmosphere of the game was improved when CIT-U’s students came up with their own set of cheers during and the other school also came up with theirs. “The students came up with their own cheers, and the other team would also do so in reply,” he said. On the other hand, CESAFI commissioner Felix ‘Boy’ O. Tiukinhoy, Jr. said for this year’s basketball matches, students get in for free in the general admission section at the Cebu Coliseum and will get a 50 percent discount for the upper box section.