By Gee Abanilla
Last October 25, 2011, Gee Abanilla took over the Head Coach position of the De La Salle University Green Archers. Abanilla is a former Green Archer; he played on the 1989 and 1990 UAAP championship teams as a point guard under Derrick Pumaren.
In 1993, he was drafted by 7-up in the fourth round of the PBA draft, but his career was short-lived. His first tour of duty on the sidelines came five years later as he became an assistant to the legendary Franz Pumaren. He was Pumaren’s lead assistant until 2004 when he moved on to coach in the PBA.
His first head coaching stint was in 2008 where he coached the CSB Blazers for a season before returning to the professional league. Aside from manning the sidelines for La Salle, Abanilla is also an assistant coach for the Petron Blaze Boosters in the PBA.
The coaching staff is really satisfied with our team’s performance over the past season. Our immediate goal was to reach the Final Four, which we thought at that time was a hard feat to accomplish. We encountered a lot of problems along the way, but we learned a lot from the players and the rest of the league.
Thanks to the support of our managers, especially Boss Danding Cojuangco, and the community, we managed to accomplish our goal and we are very happy about it.
We are fortunate that we have a bunch of players who are really hard working, and they really follow their coaches. That’s a sign of discipline on their part.
I think that because of the experience of the coaches, it gave us an edge in instilling discipline and we shared some of our technique that we acquired throughout the years. Everyone in the coaching staff (Juno Sauler, Jun Limpot and Mac Cuan) came from La Salle, played for La Salle and graduated from La Salle so more or less we have a career in basketball because of our alma mater.
In order to be successful next season, for one thing, our philosophy will remain the same. I believe that the ingredients for success do not change, and you need to have good work ethic, discipline and at the same time good character. For Season 76 we’re gonna stress this more, and hopefully the team will buy into our philosophy.
Next season, we will be giving the same effort we gave this year. Thanks to our experience this year, we can aim a little higher. Entering the Final Four was accomplished this year, and our goal next time hopefully will be to enter the finals.
Coach Gee Abanilla and the Green Archers finished the regular season with a much-improved 9-5 record. They beat the FEU Tamaraws in a thrilling playoff for the fourth semifinal seed, but succumbed to the eventual champions, the Ateneo Blue Eagles, in their Final Four matchup. La Salle finished the season at fourth place, two ranks higher than last year’s dismal 5-9 finish.
