Behind the Baller
Being in the Philippines, you know without a doubt that basketball is in our veins. From full-packed arenas to watch UAAP, NCAA or PBA games, to pick-up basketball on the side of the road, stopping the game every time a car has to pass. There is no doubt this is the number one sport in the Philippines. We are not the best nation in terms of basketball skill, although we are definitely one of the most passionate, which I believe with drive us to be one of the best in Asia. Growing up in a Spanish family in the Philippines, basketball was not my first sport. Actually, most of my life I was taught to play football, later on switching to baseball and then basketball. My family being huge in sports in general though, we would play all sorts of sports, so it was not as late as you might think. I did start taking basketball seriously in terms of playing pretty late, probably around third year high-school, largely because of my late but dramatic growth spert, from about 5'7 to 6'1