FAMOUS athletes had to start somewhere before they hit big-time.
NBA star Jeremy Lin, who is now playing for the Denver Nuggets after stints with the New York Knicks and the Houston Rockets, went to Harvard and played in the NBA’s minor tournament–the D-League before being discovered by NBA scouts.
Blue Jays’ hitter Jose Bautista was stuck in the minor league for more than half a decade, breaking out only 10 years after he was drafted.
Soccer star Didier Drogba didn’t sign his first professional contract until he was 21, some five years later than most international players of his caliber.
Many world-class athletes are not thrust into superstardom instantly. They don’t achieve success overnight. Some of them toil in obscurity for ages, until the big break comes along.
Those breaks come in the form of a scout knocking on an athletes’ door, or a fight contract laid on the table, or a telephone call from a team manager.
In local shores recently, it came in the form of the Gatorade Philippine Basketball Association Draft Combine and the Gatorade NBA Training Center for the Philippines’ Top Ball Players.
For the second year in a row, Gatorade, the official sports drink of the PBA, set the stage for the 2015 PBA Draft, starting with the Gatorade PBA Draft Combine.
Held at the Gatorade Hoops Center in Mandaluyong City, the Gatorade PBA Draft Combine was a two-day complex training camp composed of several sports and skill testing activities, drills and scrimmages designed to help PBA draftees properly showcase their skills and to help coaches, recruiters, team managers and scouts suitably assess the candidates.
An exclusive seminar for coaches was also held prior to the draft combine featuring renowned performance coach Chris Gorres, who is also head of Explosive Performance, a leading American sports performance company that uses integrated training, nutrition, and physical therapy for elite and professional athletes.
Pepsico Philippines Marketing Manager for Hydration Tony Atayde said the draft combine is part of Gatorade’s larger goal of educating coaches and athletes on the importance of hydration and world-class sports training.
“Raw athletic talent will get you far but without world-class training and hydration, success will be short-lived,” Atayde said. “As the world’s most researched sports drink, Gatorade is doing more than hydrating athletes. We are stepping up to bring sound science to the PBA Draft.”
Last year’s Gatorade PBA Draft Combine saw some standout talents who were eventually drafted into the PBA, including Alaska Aces’ Chris Banchero and GlobalPort Batang Pier’s Stanley Pringle.
Prior to the Draft Combine, NBA Champion and former NBA head coach Brian Shaw, Milwaukee Bucks forward Khris Middleton, and Utah Jazz guard Alec Burks provided advanced basketball instruction at this year’s Gatorade NBA Training Center in the Philippines, also held at the Gatorade Hoops Center.
Returning for the second consecutive year, the Gatorade NBA Training Center gathered elite instructors in the fields of basketball, fitness and conditioning, and nutrition to share the latest techniques with elite Filipino athletes and coaches.
“It’s an honor for us to be able to help bring this one-of-a-kind experience to Philippine basketball’s cream of the crop,” Atayde said. “Gatorade is always committed to fuelling the success of our local athletes, and we’ve teamed up with no less than the world’s most popular and most renowned basketball league to help us do that.”
Recently, Gatorade celebrated the 23rd anniversary of the Be Like Mike campaign—the iconic campaign which helped cement Michael Jordan’s legacy as a sports legend. The celebration coincides with Gatorade’s 50th anniversary this year.
As an industry leader, Gatorade is not just in the business of fueling the world’s top and up-and-coming athletes. Part of Gatorade’s larger campaign is to promote hydration education and world-class sports science to help athletes, coaches, sports enthusiasts and other industry leaders achieve their full potential.
