Well, what do you know, I am taking a giant step in my life.
I am coming out in a regular sports vlog, together with a nephew in law Vivid Gueco and his brother Benjo. We already have shot materials, good for three episodes, so what, people may say because hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people all over the world have done this.
Truth is, I am an unabashed old dinosaur, old school in basketball, too, and has very limited technical knowledge of the various applications of a cellphone, a computer, and social media and on my own, would not dare come out with a regular vlog.
Aptly titled SWAB or Sports World And Beyond, the idea came from Vivid and being a sports lover, too, like me, and promising that he and his brother will take care of all the technical work, while I contribute content ideas and tap resource people I have come across in my more than four decades of involvement in the world of sports as a writer.
But we made clear that our objectives would be more than just to entertain, but to educate and teach people different life lessons and positive values through the various subject matters we will tackle with the guests we will be inviting.
The first guest I invited to my house, where we shot the episode. This after the initial one, which was more of introducing myself in terms of my sports background. I am referring to present UE women's team head coach, I think her 7th season with the school and assistant coach with the national women's team Ai Lebornio.
I met her when I covered the University Games in Dumaguete, while she was still coaching five-time WNCAA collegiate champion Lyceum Lady Pirates. There, she impressed with her players' never-say-die attitude despite their small size. I introduced myself and offered to do a free team-building workshop right there in Dumaguete.
That was the start of our friendship and I became the unofficial mental strengthening mentor, gratis et amore, of both her Lyceum and UE teams.
For five straight seasons with UE, I helped her build a team from scratch with two previous winless seasons in the UAAP. In fact, by our third year, we reached the Final 4, third placer the next year, and went all the way to the finals on the fifth year against long time unbeaten National University.
She was with Pat Aquino when we won the women's SEA Games' gold medal last year, and is also with the coaching staff of Pampanga in the MPBL of Manny Pacquiao.
But what we discussed together with Vivid for that episode were ex-athletes who went broke after their careers, mostly boxers and basketball players, the reasons why these athletes ended up destitute after earning good money from their careers. Most importantly, we made our own recommendations on how present day athletes can avoid falling into this situation.
And certainly, I do not want to preempt what we discussed by sharing them here, but we certainly dissected the matter and came up with good ideas.
We will launch SWAB by November and among others, I have already lined up people like Joshua and Jerome Nelmida, the blind paratriathletes, ex-PBA cagers Padim Israel and Fritz Gaston, coach Louie Alas, kayaking pioneers Val and Didi Camara, Danny Francisco, supposedly the second coming of Mon Fernandez, and a lot of other people.
Watch out for it, then watch it on Youtube.