Whatever happens from here on out, without a doubt, it has been mission accomplished for Boris Aldeguer in De La Salle Zobel.
There is no question that Aldeguer is the winningest basketball coach in the history of the school inside Ayala Alabang. Not only that, he is the first and only tactician to bring home a championship – and then two more – inside the gates along University Avenue.
Safe to say, Aldeguer has checked off the main aims he had set out to do when he took the job.
“From Day 1, our goal was to raise the standard of the basketball program in Zobel. Looking back, Zobel wasn’t known as a basketball school, it was known to be a football school ’cause of coach Hans [Smit]*,” he shared, talking about the legendary football mentor who, apparently, had founded the school’s varsity program.
“I wanted to change that. We wanted the basketball world to know that we belong,” he told Migs Bustos in the newest episode of the University Avenue webcast.
Indeed, before Aldeguer’s entry, the Jr. Archers were far from the powerhouse they are today. They were on the up and up, but they remained a level or two below the likes of the Ateneos, the FEUs, and even the USTs.
While Boris put all together, he actually wasn’t the Aldeguer who had first gathered the pieces as Zobel’s rise in basketball coincided with the rise of Dino as a primary playmaker.
“Tama si coach Boris. Zobel wasn’t really known as a basketball school. Naalala ko nga nung mga first year ko, pag ang lamang ng kalaban is 30 points, good game na sa amin yun,” recalled the younger Aldeguer.
“Then we had coach Jong [Uichico], coach Perry [Ronquillo], nag-start mag-compete, but malayo pa rin sa championship,” he continued.
Before manning the point for DLSU’s first four-peat and then playing in the PBA, Dino Aldeguer was the first-ever blue-chip recruit hailing from Zobel.
More than that, though, he was at the forefront of the vanguard for the Bengals’ (the school’s previous monicker) contention – from his stint donning the green and white to his turn helping out his kuya.
“I was fortunate to be around good coaches – coach Jong, coach Perry, coach Franz [Pumaren], coach Derrick [Pumaren], coach Junel [Baculi], coach Tim [Cone],” he shared. “Piece-by-piece, meron nakuha si coach Boris dyan and one way or the other, I was telling him din how we did it.”
“He has the patience of coach Tim. He has the disciplinarian and run-and-gun (style) of coach Franz. He has the execution of coach Jong. All those, parang na-adopt sa Zobel,” he added.
Slowly but surely, Zobel climbed its way up and finally reached the mountaintop in 2006, led by the likes of Simon Atkins, Martin Reyes, and Migs de Asis and two years later, David Webb and Jeric Fortuna steered them to another title.
Most definitely, that was the culmination of all the efforts by the Aldeguers and those who had come before them.
“When coach Jong came in, then coach Perry, they injected already a system sa basketball. From there, we saw the basketball program was getting into high-gear, but it didn’t win a championship so when I came in, that was another one of our big goals,” exclaimed Boris.
“Sa simula, I thought it was easy lang, just teach kids the basics, but when we started playing the big schools, that’s when the problems started to come up. Fortunately, I have Dino, my dad who was a coach before, and my brother-in-law who was a PBA coach at that time (Binky Favis). It became a family affair,” he added.
Before Boris Aldeguer, his younger brother Dino was the only Zobel point guard recruited to play in college and then drafted to the PBA. Now, Zobel could boast of also having produced Simon Atkins, Jeric Fortuna, Nico Elorde, Renzo Subido, and Aljun Melecio – as well as winger Webb.
Boris Aldeguer, with the help of his younger brother Dino, changed the game for the Jr. Archers, proving again and again that the once-unknown program could win. Whenever he decides to hang up his whistle, whatever he chooses to do in the future, his shadow will always loom large inside Gym 2.
“I just wanna give a special mention to the first champion team. Prior to that, nobody knew about Zobel. We didn’t even have sponsors. That team wanted to prove something,” expressed Boris.
“When they got the championship, they set the standard. After that, everybody had to reach the same level. If we’re talking about legacy, that’s one legacy I won’t forget,” he concluded.
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*Did you know? Hans Smit founded Zobel’s varsity program – De La Salle Santiago Zobel (dlszobel.edu.ph)
