Kuya Coach Yeng

HERE'S a trivia about me. If you're into basketball or have somehow seen or watched a PBA or Gilas game, whether live or on TV, you would know who Coach Yeng Guiao is. I proudly and fondly call him Kuya Yeng. He's my first-degree cousin. My mom and his dad are siblings. He's 20 years my senior and is one of my older cousins while I actually am the youngest among first-degree cousins on my mother's side. I have always looked up to him as a role model, not just because of our close affinity but mostly because of how he has lived his life and has kept his path straight, as shown in his advocacies and political leanings.

I got a chance to catch a rare sit-down interview of his that lasted more than 10 minutes on "Sports Beat PH" just yesterday, and boy, was I glad I did! You see, while we're first cousins, besides our wide age gap, I rarely get to see him. When we were younger, we would get together with all the cousins at least twice a year — on All Saints' Day to pay our respects to my maternal grandparents' graves and on New Year's Day to get together at their ancestral house. His father who also was like a role model to all of us and whom Kuya Yeng surely must have taken after, used to host our yearly parties until his untimely demise in the late '90s. Kuya Yeng would shake my hand or pat me on the back whenever we saw each other. And, in case you were wondering, no, he never shouted at us, so we never had to throw him out of the house like how he would be thrown out of the court during basketball games. He is kind and gentle in person. Like most fathers, he is a man of few words. Kuya Yeng silently helped me through college after my father unfortunately passed away early in his '50s when I was just in senior high school, a couple of years before his father did. And I would always tell this story every time I talked about him to anyone.

GRAMMARAMA!