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| With author Bianca Gonzalez: “When the interview is not sports-related, I normally shy away.” |
I’ve been watching Norman Black from the time I was a kid and he was a
star player for San Miguel, to this day when he coaches the basketball
team of my alma mater. It was so surreal to finally shake his hand and
sit down with him for a one-on-one interview. I’m so thankful that with
the help of his “alter-ego” (as coach Norman calls him) and team manager
Paolo Trillo, he actually said, yes! From what I’ve heard, he hardly
ever agrees to do lifestyle or entertainment interviews. And sure
enough, when I thanked him for saying yes, he said, “When it’s not
sports-related, I normally shy away.”
Whether you are a
die-hard basketball fan or you don’t care about basketball at all, coach
Norman has some very interesting stories worth reading about. Here are
10 things I learned about him:
1. Coach Norman
holds the record for being the PBA import with the highest number of
points and the highest number of rebounds of all time.
Scoring
a total of 11, 314 points and 5,333 rebounds in the span of 282 games
played from 1981 to 1990, Norman Black is the leader in the list of
all-time scoring and rebounding imports. That list includes other great
PBA imports such as Bobby Parks, Sean Chambers, and Billy Ray Bates. In
those 282 games, he averaged 40.1 points, 18.9 rebounds, and 4.1 assists
per game.
2. His love for the game of basketball started with a rejection.
“I
actually started playing basketball because I didn’t make the team in
high school,” coach Norman reveals. He was a ninth grader in Cardinal
Gibbons School in Baltimore then, and though he never really played
basketball before that, he wanted to try it out since he already had the
height, build, and the ability to jump really high. “Because I got cut
from the team I became very determined to prove the coach wrong, and to
try to prove that I could be one of the better players,” he explains.
The very next year, he made the team and according to him he “became
pretty good very quickly.”
3. Coach Norman in numbers:
196 — his height in centimeters (or 6’5”)
14 — his shoe size
76 — most number of points he scored in one game (this was on Oct. 13, 1985 when he played for Magnolia)
With wife Benjie during the 2010 3-peat victory party in Fiamma: “Maganda ang asawa ko.”
24 — his jersey number when he played for the Detroit Pistons in the 1980-81 NBA season
14
— number of championships he won as a coach. He won 10 in the PBA, nine
of which were for San Miguel and one for Sta.Lucia. He won four
straight championships for Ateneo in the UAAP
2.5 — number of years between the day he met and the day he married his wife Benjie
4.
He once broke his finger in the middle of a game, taped it up, finished
the game, and ended up scoring 46 points. This is what earned him the
award, and the moniker, “Mr. 100%.”
This happened
in 1983 when he was playing for Great Taste. “Everybody knew it was
broken, that’s one of the reasons why they gave me the award,” he
shares. Today, the championship shirts Ateneo have the words “Mr. 100%”
printed on them, as a way of honoring what Coach Norman has done for the
team.
5. On more than one occasion, some alumni members wanted him kicked out as head coach of Ateneo.
Coach
Norman was first a consultant for the Ateneo Blue Eagles in 2004, then
became head coach in 2005. Success didn’t come easily. It was in 2008,
the 71st season of the UAAP, that he won his first championship as a
coach in college basketball. “I know after my second year, a lot of
alumni wanted to get rid of me,” coach Norman reveals. After his third
year, still with no win, he said that a majority of the alumni wanted to
get rid of him. He explains, “What they didn’t realize is that it takes
time to build things, you make an investment, and you don’t get that
investment back immediately.”
“I have to thank Fr. Ben
(Nebres) and MVP (sports czar Manny V. Pangilinan), they were the two
who did not listen to the people who wanted me kicked out,” Coach Norman
adds.
When asked which of the four UAAP championship
titles was the most fulfilling, Coach Norman said it would be the first.
“Mainly because I coached Ateneo for three years before we actually won
on my fourth year as head coach.”
I asked him, in all
honesty and humility, if he felt in his heart that they would win this
season. He said, “Out of all the teams I coached in Ateneo, I thought
this team had the best chance of winning.”
When asked if
he will still be the head coach of Ateneo next season, he answered,
“There are a lot of rumors going around about that. I don’t know what
the management has planned and how they’re going to handle the
situation, so I’m not going to say anything for the meantime.” However,
he did give a statement regarding a possible “5-peat” prediction for
Ateneo: “If a championship is on the horizon, I’m certainly going to
strive for that.”
6. “Norman, please don’t pull my chain” is the best advice he got from his basketball coach.
These
were the words of Jimmy Lynam, his coach when he played for St.
Joseph’s College in Pennsylvania. “At the time he said that to me, I
didn’t really realize what he was talking about, but in essence what he
was trying to say is, ‘Don’t try to fool me.’” In coach Norman’s own
words, simply put, “You can’t cheat.” This piece of advice was what
really disciplined him, and made him realize that if you work hard in
basketball, it will pay off. If you don’t work hard, well, then don’t
expect to get any better. “If you want to become a star, you have to
work hard at it,” he concludes.
7. Of all the
players he has coached in the PBA and the UAAP, he admires Hector Calma,
Mon Fernandez, Samboy Lim and Chris Tiu the most.
On
the top of his list is Hector Calma. “He was an extraordinary player,
and an even better person,” coach Norman reveals. He also has high
respect for Mon Fernandez because of his accomplishments and work ethic;
Samboy Lim, “mainly because I think any lesser player probably would’ve
quit basketball considering how many major injuries he had, and he just
kept coming back.” He has a lot of respect for Chris Tiu, saying “to be
good at basketball, to be good-looking, to be rich, and to be humble at
the same time — that’s very difficult to accomplish.”
8. He is in great shape at the age of 53 because, to this day, he works out every day.
In
their home, they have a treadmill, stationary bike, cross trainer, and
weights. Because he goes to practice with the Talk ‘N Text team at 2
p.m. and the Ateneo team at 6 p.m., he prefers to work out in the
morning as soon as he wakes up. “Sometimes I even work out before
eating, which is probably not good,” he jokes. He loves to work out and
calls himself a “physical fitness nut.” Every day, he goes on the
stationary bike for one hour, does light weights, and 700 sit-ups. (Yes,
700!)
Coach Norman Black at the Smart Araneta Coliseum minutes
after clinching a rare four-peat jewel. With him are team manager Paolo
Trillo and Rissa Mananquil.
9. He used to wake up at 5:30 in the morning every day to tutor his son Aaron.
“That
was before geometry, calculus, and everything else they are doing now,”
Coach Norman laughs. For Aaron’s whole grade school life, and a little
until first year high school (Aaron is now on his second year in high
school in the Ateneo, also playing for the Juniors basketball team)
Coach Norman would get up extra early to tutor his son before he went
off to school. The subjects that were his forte were science, English
and math, and his wife Benjie would handle Filipino, history, and
Christian living.
10. Coach Norman speaks Tagalog fluently and actually considers himself to be 50-percent Pinoy.
When
I asked Coach Norman if he speaks Tagalog, he flashed a big smile and
says, “Syempre!” I laughed because of his endearing accent and he
quickly defended himself, saying, “Ang problema sa Tagalog ko, barok
din.” (Imagine him pronouncing ko as “kow” and barok as “ba-rowk” and
you will surely smile.) He is quick to answer that maganda is his
favorite Tagalog word and even uses it in a sentence, “Maganda ang asawa
ko.” The Tagalog phrases that he uses most often with his players are
“Ano ka ba?” “Anong problema mo?” or “anong gusto mo?” or anything with
the word “ano,” actually, especially when they do something mali.
But
more than being able to speak Tagalog, he considers himself to be Pinoy
because of his attitude, his acceptance of the culture, and his
understanding of the people. He does point out that he still can’t
accept the driving habits of some Filipinos and that it “bugs him every
day,” but ends with a smile saying, “I’m pretty happy living in the
Philippines.”
While listening to coach Norman talk about
his philosophy of basketball, I couldn’t help but think how much it
actually relates to real life. One particular piece of advice he gives
his players is this: he tells them, “You can be a very talented player
as an individual, but if you’re not good enough to make your teammates
better, then you’re normally not going to win very many games.” For
those like me who don’t play basketball and aren’t part of any team
sport, that chunk of wisdom still applies! It is true that we must
strive to not only make ourselves better, but to help make the people
around us better, too. If we all do our best with the different
individual roles we are assigned to play, and at the same time push each
other to do better, that is how we all succeed. (Of course, my words
sound like the beauty queen version of his advice, but it does make the
same point, right?)
Coach Norman with Chris Tiu on the court after winning the 2009 back-to-back championship
For
someone who has accomplished so much for himself and for others, it is
inspiring to hear coach Norman say: “Success is ongoing, it never
stops.”
