The Winning Ways of Chot Reyes; coach of Gilas Pilipinas

In 1985, the UAAP Mythical Five included four players who would later become stars in the PBA — Jerry

Codinera and Allan Caidic of University of the East, Glenn Capacio of Far Eastern University, and Pido Jarencio of University of Santo Tomas.

The fifth member of the team never made it as a professional player, but his impact on Philippine basketball has been immeasurable.

That player was Chot Reyes, the former star point guard of the Ateneo Blue Eagles who would go on to make his mark as a coach. On Saturday night, he became the first Filipino coach in four decades to bring the national team back to the world stage.
That completed his journey from being the PBA’s whiz kid to one of the greatest bench tacticians in the history of the game in the Philippines.

He began his PBA coaching career as an assistant for his friend, Tim Cone, at Alaska. When Cone experienced opposition from local coaches unhappy with the appointment of an American coach, Reyes took over Alaska on an interim basis, and his performance at the helm turned heads around the league.

Wonder Boy

In 1993, he was named coach of the Purefoods franchise. He was only 29 years old at the time of his appointment. To illustrate how young Reyes was, he shared the exact same birth date as the reigning Most Valuable Player of the league at the time, Ato Agustin of San Miguel Beer.

Observers openly wondered whether the young coach had the chops to lead the talent-laden team that featured Alvin Patrimonio and Jerry Codinera. In just five seasons in the PBA, Purefoods had already gone through five different coaches — Mon Fernandez, Cris Calilan, Baby Dalupan, Ely Capacio, and Ding Panganiban.

But Reyes quickly proved his mettle, leading the team then known as Coney Island to the finals of the All-Filipino Conference in his very first tournament.

In the title series, Coney Island had to go up against San Miguel Beer, who defeated Purefoods in the championship in the same tournament the previous year.

The series saw Reyes matching wits with Grand Slam-winning coach Norman Black. Using unconventional tactics, Reyes led the franchise to the All-Filipino crown.

To this day, he remains the youngest coach to ever win a PBA championship.

He proved that his title run in his very first conference as coach was no beginner’s luck, leading Purefoods to the finals of the very next conference before losing the title to Yeng Guiao’s Swift in the Commissioner’s Cup.

Reyes’ succesful run at the helm of Purefoods continued in 1994. He led the team back to the finals of the All-Filipino Conference, where they lost in a rematch with the Beermen. They rebounded the next conference, as they defeated Tim Cone and Alaska for the Commissioner’s Cup title.

In his first five conferences in charge, Reyes led Purefoods to four finals appearances, winning two championships.

The rest of Reyes’ run at Purefoods wasn’t quite as successful, as they made it to the finals once in the next seven conferences. Still, when he left Purefoods at the end of the 1996 season, he was the most successful coach in franchise history.

Moving on

In 1997, Reyes moved to Sta. Lucia, where he was expected to work his magic on a lineup that featured young big men Jun Limpot and Dennis Espino.

But even before he could complete his first year with the Realtors, a revolt among the players left Reyes on the outs. His critics took that as an opportunity to insinuate that his success as a coach was only because of his talented lineup at Purefoods.

Reyes took a break from coaching, joining the fledgling Metropolitan Basketball Association as an executive later that year. He also had a short stint as an assistant for Tim Cone as part of the Centennial Team in 1998.

By 1999, however, Reyes was back on the sidelines full-time for a short stint as coach of the Pangasinan Waves. The team, led by an aging Boy Cabahug, was not very good, and for Reyes, the gig was about as far away from the PBA limelight as a coach of his stature could get. But it did pave the way for Reyes’ return to what he does best — coaching basketball.

Back to the PBA

In 2000, Reyes was hired to coach the Pop Cola Panthers, a once-proud PBA franchise that had been crippled after years of underachievement. Led by aging stars Nelson Asaytono, Jojo Lastimosa, and Noli Locsin, the team failed to place better than sixth in any of the three conferences that season.

But the team’s fortunes changed in 2001, when Reyes swung separate trades to bring veteran star point guard Johnny Abarrientos and energetic forward Rudy Hatfield into the Pop Cola fold. With Abarrientos and Hatfield leading the charge, Pop Cola zoomed to a surprise third-place finish in the All-Filipino Conference.

The next season, Coca-Cola acquired the Cosmos franchise in the PBA but left Reyes at the helm. He made more key moves, making a deal for star guard Jeffrey Cariaso that turned the Tigers into title contenders.

Reyes finally had the team that could execute his vision of a fast-paced running attack. The Tigers clawed their way to the All-Filipino championship in 2002, clinching the title on Christmas Day. After eight long years, Reyes was a PBA champion again.

He once again proved it was no fluke, as Coca-Cola made the finals of all three tournaments in 2003, winning the season-ending Reinforced Conference.

Chot Reyes was no longer a wonder boy, but he was again on top of the PBA.

National disappointment

With his success at Coke, Reyes was selected to become coach of the national team. He gave up his job at the Tigers to oversee the national program, coaching the team in the William Jones Cup and the FIBA Asia Champions Cup. Under Reyes, the main goal was to compete in the 2005 FIBA Asia Championship, the qualifier for World Championship the year after that.

But a dispute between the Philippine Olympic Committee and the Basketball Association of the Philippines resulted in a suspension from FIBA, disallowing the country from competing in any international competition.

With the national program in limbo, Reyes was appointed to coach the San Miguel Beer franchise in 2006. In his lone conference at the helm, he led the team to the 2007 PBA Philippine Cup finals, where the Beermen lost in six games to Ginebra.

During the finals series, FIBA announced the lifting of its suspension of the Philippines, allowing the country to compete in international tournaments once more.

Reyes left the Beermen to take the reins of the national team once more, and assembled a squad for the 2007 FIBA Asia Championship.

But bad luck struck the squad during the draw, as it was grouped with West Asian powerhouse teams Iran and Jordan, along with China, which sent its development team to the competition. According to the format of that year’s tournament, only the top two teams advanced past the group stages, unlike in later stagings, when three teams moved on.

The San Miguel Corporation-sponsored Team Pilipinas won against China but dropped close matches to Iran and Jordan to fail to make it to the next round. It salvaged its campaign by sweeping the classification stage, to show that the Philippine team was better than that its ninth-place finish suggested.

After his national team stint, Reyes returned to the PBA and served as an adviser in SMC’s basketball operations.

The Talk ‘N Text Dynasty

In 2008, Reyes accepted the post of Talk ‘N Text coach, taking over a rich franchise with a talent-laden roster that has perennially underachieved. Despite a loaded lineup that had featured, in past years, stars like Asi Taulava, Willie Miller, Jay Washington, and Jimmy Alapag, the team had only one PBA conference title in its collection.

After one tournament, Reyes began putting his imprint on the squad, trading star forward Washington in 2008 to San Miguel for the third pick in the draft, which the coach used to select Jayson Castro.

Reyes found immediate success with Talk ‘N Text, winning the Philippine Cup in 2009, the franchise’s second championship and first in six seasons.

Talk ‘N Text failed to defend its all-Filipino crown in 2010, controversially losing to Ginebra in the quarterfinals that saw the Tropang Texters walk out because of complaints over officiating in Game Four of their series.

They rebounded the next season, winning the first two titles before falling short of a Grand Slam in the Governors’ Cup against Petron. Talk ‘N Text won the Philippine Cup again in 2012, becoming the first team in 27 years to repeat as champion in an all-Filipino tournament.

Before Reyes took over, the PLDT franchise only had one title. By the time he left, Talk ‘N Text had become the most dominant team in the PBA, winning four championships on six finals appearances in 11 conferences under Chot Reyes.

Return to national team

Reyes received much criticism from Filipino fans after his first stint at the helm of the national team. But he could not say no to the challenge of leading the country in international play, and so he left the comforts of Talk ‘N Text in 2012 to take over the Gilas Pilipinas national program.

There were still critics, of course, who argued that his success with the Tropang Texters had more to do with the talent of the players than with Reyes’ ability as coach.

But amid the doubts, the winning culture Reyes cultivated at Talk ‘N Text almost immediately transmuted into Gilas, which emerged victorious in the team’s very first international tournament, the 34th William Jones Cup.

The team finished fourth in the FIBA Asia Cup a month later, giving Reyes and his staff some more valuable experience.

In 2013, the breaks finally went the way of the Philippines, as FIBA Asia awarded the country rights to stage the championship because of safety concerns in Lebanon. That rallied the nation around Reyes and the Gilas Pilipinas national squad, who enjoyed the love and support of the whole basketball-crazy country in their historic campaign in the FIBA Asia Championship.

Even up to the end, Reyes had his doubters. And those doubts were on his mind moments after his team booked a ticket to the FIBA World Cup.

“To all of my haters and to all the skeptics, I say, God bless you, I forgive you, and mabuhay ang Pilipinas.”

By then, there was no longer any doubt about the stature of Reyes — the brains behind the Gilas Pilipinas program — as one of the greatest coaches in the history of Philippine basketball.