In the history of the Philippine Basketball Association, there were a few foreign coaches who burst onto the scene either as head coaches or active consultants.
Glen MacDonald, the import who led U/Tex to two PBA titles, became the first foreign coach to handle a local squad. He coached the Wranglers from 1981 to 1982 but couldn’t carry his on-court success with his new role as mentor.
American Ron Jacobs coached the national men’s basketball team, which also competed as a guest squad for two seasons and became the last local guest team to win a title in the Third Conference in 1985.
Of course, Norman Black followed MacDonald’s footsteps from being a multi-titled champion import to becoming a full-time head coach. But unlike MacDonald, who won the 1976 National Basketball Association title with the Boston Celtics, Black emerged as a better mentor.
Throughout his coaching career, Black won 11 PBA titles, including a grand slam in 1989.
But the most decorated among these foreign mentors was Tim Cone, who remains active after calling the shots for more than three decades. He collected 25 PBA titles and remains as the only coach to win two grand slams in 1996 with Alaska and 2014 with San Mig Coffee.
The Basketball Coaches Association of the Philippines didn’t make a big deal seeing Black and Cone barking instructions at the sidelines for their respective clubs and the national team as they are both married to Filipinas. The organization, however, frowned upon the next batch of foreign coaches who followed Cone and Black’s footsteps.
Bill Bayno and Paul Woolpert, for example, were appointed by Talk ‘N Text as coaches in 2001 and 2002, but they didn’t last long due to the pressure from the BCAP.
With that, teams became more creative in tapping the services of foreign mentors by tagging them not as “head coach,” but as “active consultants.”
On paper, the foreign mentors are just consultants with a Filipino running the show. It was the set-up used to accommodate the coaching stints of Serbian Rajko Toroman for Petron under Olsen Racela and Red Bull under Siot Tanquincen.
The Toroman setup paved the way for teams to hire foreign mentors disguising themselves as active consultants like Todd Purves under Buboy Ravenas at Petron and Tab Baldwin and Mark Dickel under Bong Ravena at TNT Tropang Giga.
Last season, the Tropang Giga brought in Lale Gorunovic of Serbia as coaching consultant with Jojo Lastimosa still calling the shots. The partnership was successful as it led TNT to the Governors’ Cup title.
Now, another Serbian in Nenad Vucinic will be at centerstage after Meralco appointed him as active consultant of head coach Luigi Trillo.
Although Trillo served as head coach during the PBA On Tour, Vucinic, a well-travelled mentor who once called the shots for Gilas Pilipinas, had been given the blanket authority to call the shots in the Commissioner’s Cup starting on Sunday.
Like a good soldier, Trillo willingly stepped aside and extended his helping hand to the Serbian guru.
But, can Meralco get over the hump with this coaching adjustment?
The Bolts could only hope that this partnership would eventually lead to their first title.
