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Telan makes a statement
THE MOMENT Shell's Mark Clemence Telan drove for the winning shot Friday evening, I was reminded of Jim Valvano, the late coach of North Carolina State, erupting into frenzy after Lorenzo Charles rebounded Derick Whittenburg's miss and slammed it home at the buzzer to lift the Wolfpacks past Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Cougars in the 1983 US NCAA final game. Valvano rushed to the playing court in Albuqurque, running all over in search of somebody to hug and ended up embracing a stunned elderly janitor. No, portly Perry Ronquillo, the Shell coach, didn't do a Valvano impersonation that night at the PhilSports Arena. He would have suffered a heart attack right there if he did. Telan, however, couldn't contain his emotions. After the shot went in, the 6-6 Telan raised his arms in triumph, raced across the floor, leapt atop the "rolltec" apparatus at sideline, hugged two of his teammates at the baseline even if Red Bull still had an inbound pass to make with five-tenths of a second left, and then faced the bleacher section behind the press box and pumped No. 1 signs with both hands. I turned my head and looked up half-expecting a squad of La Salle fans in greenand-white throwing the No. 1 sign back at Telan. On the way to the press room, somebody remarked: "Mark is overacting. The way he celebrated, you'd think he's in the UAAP and the Green Archers had just won the championship." I told the fellow to give "the boy" a break. "Bah! He's not a boy anymore," the guy snapped. I let the exchange pass. For one, it was obvious he was not a Shell fan and two, he was right on two of the three things he said - Telan did react as though he were still in college and his team had just bagged the title, and that Telan no longer a boy. He's never been out-coached in those three defeats, and has, in fact, taken his first three opponents to the limit, including rock-solid Tanduay to which he lost by only seven. He was wrong, however, on the third - that Telan overacted. If you'd waited almost 15 months for the moment to come as Telan did, praying every day and every night to be in a position to win the game, any game, for his team, you would've understood. Telan was in fourth year high back in the summer of '94 when I first met him. Colleague Dave Coros and I were guzzling ice-cold beer in the front yard of my rented room when a young man walked by outside, head and shoulders higher than our fivefoot concrete wall. I introduced myself and learned he wanted to play for Sta. Lucia Realty in the Philippine Basketball League because he was a great fan of Marlou Aquino. Dave immediately called Buddy Encarnado, the Realtors team manager, and informed him that a 6-5 college freshman was on the way to joining his team. Encarnado promptly set an appointment. I recall a conversation one day after that between Encarnado and then La Salle coach Derick Pumaren, who was talking to Telan, behind the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
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