Philippine Asian News Today Vol 19 No 20 | Page 29
October 16 - 31, 2017
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY
29
Meralco’s Reddy
Kilowatt
Someone said that en-
couragement is simply re-
minding a person of the
“shoulders” he’s standing on,
the legacy he’d been given.
Last season when the
Meralco Bolts first made it to
the finals of the Governor’s
Cup of the PBA’s 41stseason
against crowd favourite, the
Ginebra Kings, and were told
of the rich tradition their pre-
decessors, the Reddy Kilo-
watts, had established as
early as when basketball was
first played in the country,
coach Norman Black cannot
hide his amazement on the
historical value attached to
their campaign.
“It’s an additional motiva-
tion for us all. I’ll tell the boys
about that so they’ll further
be inspired our efforts to win
the title,” Black told this writer
then.
That, as everybody knows,
is now history as Meralco lost
to Ginebra in Game 6 of their
best-of-seven championship
series on a last second three-
point shot by import Justin
Brownlee. Not bad going
home with the runner up tro-
phy.
“Yeah, not bad at all. At
least we’re the second best,”
Black said the next time we
met after the smoke of battle
had been extinguished. The
Bolts didn’t win their rings but
a second place finish could
be the start of something big
for the Manny V. Pangilinan
franchise.
This year, in that same
conference, the Bolts are in
the title playoff anew against
the same Gin Kings in their
bid to add to the Kilowatts’
crown jewels won I932 during
the infant year of the sport,
which is now the Filipinos’ fa-
vorite pastime, and in 1969,
1970 and 1971 in the era of
the Manila Industrial Com-
mercial Athletic Association
(MICAA).
Meralco might not have
seen action yet when basket-
balls was first played here, in-
cidentally by women in 1911
during the Manila Carnival
Athletic meet , forerunner of
the now defunct Interscholas-
tics. The sport was then called
“sissy’s game.”
But it is believed though
that the Meralco Athletic Club
w