Work Never Stops For Coach Ronnie

Despite Magsanoc’s victory, his feet never left the ground. “I’m like an ant,” he said. “I’ve worked 10 years as an assistant coach. Life goes on, win or lose. I still play the game because it helps me to better understand the players whom I work with. For seven months, I woke up at 5:30 every morning to drive from Katipunan to San Beda for 6:15 practice. I stayed until 8:30 then drove to Meralco for 9:30 practice. That’s how it was. This was the hardest challenge of my career because it involved a lot of sacrifice from everyone. The players and I could never be late for practice since we were running on a tight schedule.”

Magsanoc, 46, remembered being a head coach only once before in 1990 with the MassCom team in the UP intramurals and one of his players was Gregorio – that’s how they met. “When I retired from the PBA as a player in 2002, I wanted time with my family, to be with my kids growing up,” he said. “I was content being an assistant coach under Ryan. We won championships, we made a good tandem. Then came the invitation to coach San Beda. I’m a good soldier. It was Boss MVP (Manny V. Pangilinan) who asked me to take over from Frankie (Lim) who had resigned.”

Magsanoc said there was little time to even think about the job. “I was asked a week before April,” he recalled. “I met the players for the first time April 2 and 10 days later was the start of the Filoil tournament. When I showed up for our first practice, I found out the team hadn’t gotten together since Frankie resigned. The players looked sad. Then, we went to Los Angeles for training and bonding. When we got back, it was the Filoil quarterfinals and two weeks later, we started the NCAA. We had only six players available for our first NCAA game and we weren’t complete until our fifth. We thought we’d start out 1-3 or even 0-4 but we aimed for 2-2. Luckily, we began 3-1. All I hoped for was to sustain the trust of the players because at least, we were winning.”

Magsanoc said three things entered his mind when he agreed to coach San Beda. “First, I would be accountable, second, there would be no excuses and third, we would all work hard with no short-cuts,” he said. “I couldn’t promise a championship. I could only promise we would do our best. I didn’t even have time to read up on the NCAA Constitution. My orientation has always been professional basketball since 1988 so this was a new experience. It was a learning process. But not once did I ever think I should be playing instead of coaching. I dissociated myself from that thought. I wanted to trust our players, to push them to play to their potentials, to prove themselves.”

Transforming the Lions into a defense-minded team was a major step. “Frankie built a winning system which I inherited,” he said. “But looking at the stats, I noticed we had to do something to make up for losing Garvo Lanete, Dave Marcelo and a big guard like Mar Villahermosa. We were a different team without them. We had to make adjustments. Against a team like Letran, we couldn’t play offense versus offense. So we concentrated on playing defense as a unit.”

Magsanoc said he was careful not to wish for anything in the finals. “We lost to San Sebastian twice in the elims and Letran had won eight of their last nine,” he said. “Perpetual beat JRU in the playoffs and we lost to Perpetual in the elims. But we just had to wait whom to play in the Final 4. The key for us was to get a good start. In Game 3 against Letran, I thought it would go down to the wire. I never expected it to go the way it did but we had a good start and committed to play defense.”

Magsanoc dedicated the win to Pangilinan, the players and the school. “Boss MVP was on the court after Game 3,” he related. “He told me congratulations, job well done. I mentioned this was for the players and thanked him for his never-ending generosity.” The day before, Magsanoc said Pangilinan arranged to book the entire team for an overnight stay at Crowne Plaza. “We practiced at Araneta then watched the movie ‘Argo,’ the first time we did something as a team outside the court because it’s so difficult to connect schedules,” he said. “After the movies, we met Boss MVP, Mr. Ricky (Vargas), Mr. Pato (Gregorio) and coach Chot (Reyes) for dinner. The players got the job done, not me, that’s the bottom line.”

Magsanoc said he couldn’t have survived the journey without the support of his family and coaching staff. Magsanoc and wife Bing are blessed with three angels – Alyana, 23, Mikaela, 22 and Katrina, 15. His buddy Benjie Paras is coach of the Lions’ bigs while Xavy Nunag and Patrick Fran are his other assistants with Boyet Fernandez also helping out. San Beda icon Bonnie Carbonnel is Magsanoc’s inspiration as a former Olympian and Lion star.   

source: Joaquin Henson, Philstar