School pride?

School pride? | Daily Tribune

Player movements in the collegiate ranks are getting out of hand. Star playmaker Jacob Cortez started the carousel by transferring to De La Salle University shortly after leading San Beda University to a seniors title in the National Collegiate Athletic Association last December.

Well, his decision to move to La Salle, the reigning University Athletic Association of the Philippines champion, makes a lot of sense.

His father, Mike, played for the Green Archers, where he emerged from being an unknown Filipino-American playmaker into one of the country’s brightest basketball stars.

A few weeks after Cortez’s transfer, Kean Baclaan and Luis Pablo followed suit.

Baclaan, who played for De La Salle Zobel in high school, saw action for National University for two years before joining the Green Archers, while Pablo, who played high school ball at La Salle Green Hills, had a forgettable rookie season with the University of the Philippines before heading back to Taft Avenue.

Over at the NCAA, Carlo Ferreras moved from University of Perpetual Help System Dalta to Letran College, while Shawn Umali transferred to College of Saint Benilde from Lyceum of the Philippines.

But the wheeling and dealing was not limited to college stars. In high school, it’s even more alarming.

The most shocking movement happened in Cebu City where high school sensation Jared Bahay broke his commitment to UP to join Ateneo de Manila University.

There’s nothing wrong with joining the Blue Eagles. After all, his high school — Sacred Heart School — is also run by the Jesuits.

But the manner of his transfer was quite controversial as it happened shortly after Ateneo head coach Tab Baldwin and team manager Epok Quimpo flew all the way from Manila to watch Bahay single-handedly dominate the University of the Visayas in the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. finals.

UP Office for Athletics and Sports Development director Bo Perasol confirmed Bahay’s change of heart, blaming it on the intervention of some “outside forces.” He didn’t point to Baldwin and Quimpo, however.

Talking about “outside forces,” the same thing happened to the University of Santo Tomas.

UST was confident that Andrei Dungo, a Mythical Team member in the junior ranks, would stay in España to pump new blood into the struggling Growling Tigers. He was after all a protégé of Cubs mentor Manu Iñigo at San Beda before playing for UST high school.

But to everyone’s surprise, he suddenly announced that he was moving to La Salle. Worse, he didn’t even inform the UST management team, which learned of his transfer only on social media.

The same thing nearly happened with Jonnel Policarpio.

After a strong rookie season at La Salle, the 6-foot-5 forward flirted with the idea of moving to another school. Reports had it that he was choosing between UST, Letran College and Mapua University before he decided to stay at La Salle.

With all these movements, we can’t help but ask: Are these kids still in the amateurs? If yes, then, why are they having a grand time moving from one school to another as if they were already professional stars?

There is no doubt that poaching is prevalent in the collegiate, high school, all the way down to the grassroots levels. Amateur players these days have no more sense of school loyalty but are thinking of the attractive compensation packages and other perks and benefits that will come their way if they transfer — just like they do in the professional ranks.

Both the UAAP and the NCAA should put an end to this by putting more teeth into their respective policies about player movement. Aside from protecting amateurism, they have to preach the values of loyalty, integrity, responsibility, and school pride to their student-athletes.

Yes, times have definitely changed as student-athletes are now heavily pampered by coaches, team managers and other officials looking to gain an edge against their rival schools. Still, UAAP and NCAA officials have to put their heads together and do something about these professional players masquerading as student-athletes.