Thirty five years since they last worked together, multi-titled coach Norman Black and Rino Salazar are still involved in basketball — all for the love of the game.
This time, though, they were playing different roles.
Black went to Las Vegas last week as head of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas’ grassroots development program and joined Gilas Pilipinas youth coach LA Tenorio and national women’s team coach Patrick Aquino to look for Fil-Am prospects who could join our Philippine basketball squads.
But as soon as he got himself settled to see the young players who are 16 years old and below, Black learned about the SBP’s announcement that he would coach the Gilas Pilipinas men’s basketball team in this year’s Southeast Asian Games to be held in Bangkok, Thailand in December.
As for Salazar?
He’s still very much involved in basketball, but on a different role as a game official.
A long-time deputy of Robert Jaworski at Ginebra before he took his own flight to become a PBA champion coach at Shell in 1992, then returned to the league’s most popular team a few years after, Salazar is now a member of the Southern Nevada Officials Association, refereeing some of the games here, including the games keenly observed by Black, Tenorio and Aquino where players coming from teams in the United States like the Fil-Am Select of legendary coach Larry Albano, as well as squads from Vancouver, Canada, New York and Washington D.C.. of Eric Quijano, participated.
At his age of 73, Salazar remains as fit as a fiddle, running up and down the court while making sure he’s on top of the action.
According to Salazar, since retiring from the airline company he used to work for 10 years in Alaska, he moved to Las Vegas and for the past few years, he’s been regularly oifficiating games.
“I’ve been here in Vegas the past 15 years,” said Salazar, a former player and member of the multi-titled Toyota squad in the PBA during a telephone interview by Pinoystep.com. “Over the past few years, I’ve been officiating games and just recently, I’ve officiated eight of the 500 games played in one tournament.”
Staying in shape has become a habit for Salazar, who’s been lifting weights whenever there’s no game assigned.
Salazar saw a lot of potential young players in the event that was observed by Black, Tenorio and Aquino.
“A lot of tall and athletic players, so definitely, a lot of potential,” said Salazar. “The only problem was, parents of these players have reservations sending them to Manila.”
Black, Aquino and Tenorio were there to look for prospects who are 16 and blow and encourage some of them to secure Philippine Passport before they turned 17 and make them eligible to play as a local player for Gilas Pilipinas.
During their stint in Vegas, Tenorio saw Mark Caguioa and they played in a pick up game.
“I asked Norman, can you still play?,” said Salazar. “I forgot to bring my jersey and shorts and all I have was a referre uniform so I wasn’t able to join them play.”
Black and Salazar were members of the first all-professional Philippine men’s basketball team coached by Jaworski and finished silver in the 1990 Asian Games.
“I even teased Norman, if you need an assistant for your staff or even ball boy, I’m here,” said Salazar in jest.
Turning serious, Salazar recalled the great times he had with Black and the rest of the members of that much-celebrated 1990 Asiad team.
