Never in Haydee Ong’s wildest dreams did she imagine that she would be the catalyst to the birth of a professional women’s basketball league.

But on a fateful day right in the middle of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) Season 87 last October, she received a call that would change the course of women’s basketball in the country.

“It’s a big responsibility, of course,” said Ong, adding that Women’s Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (WMPBL) president John Kallos reached out to offer her the golden opportunity of spearheading a professional women’s basketball league that aims to discover fresh talents in various provinces.

“We had a meeting with the coaches and I told them: We need to work together. All 14 teams are rivals inside the court, but outside, we’re all friends and we’re working together for the development of women’s basketball.”

Sustaining a women’s basketball league is never easy.

The defunct Philippine Basketball League was the first to hold a women’s tourney but it folded up right after just three seasons. The National Basketball League also tried to stage it but it failed right from the get-go.

Now, here comes the WMPBL with no less than Ong — a seasoned coach with unwavering love for the game — calling the shots.

She said her first order of business was to inform her boss, University of Santo Tomas (UST) Institute of Physical Education and Athletics chief Fr. Rodel Cansancio.

“When I told Father Rodel that I was being appointed as the WMPBL commissioner, he said: ‘We are all out to support you, Coach Haydee and for women’s basketball.’ “That is how big the love of UST is for women’s basketball,” Ong said.

“You saw the opening done at the UST Quadricentennial Pavilion. I could not ask for more for all the support of Father Rector Ang, of course, and Father Cansancio, who is behind all of this.”

Experience outranks everything

If you rip Ong’s chest wide open, you’ll see basketball beating in her heart.

In fact, the 54-year-old mentor has seen the rise of women’s basketball in the country since her playing years at UST, where she won four UAAP titles as well as a bronze medal in the Southeast Asian Games.

‘I think when opportunity comes, what’s important to me is that you are prepared for it. Sometimes, we can’t even see the opportunities in front of us and sometimes we grab it but we are unprepared and fail because of it.’

She replaced Matthew “Fritz” Gaston, now a commissioner of the Philippine Sports Commission, as national team mentor in 2008. Two years later, her program bore fruit as the Nationals copped the gold medal in the 2010 SEABA Championship for Women before winning a couple of silver medals in the 2011 and 2013 SEA Games in Indonesia and Myanmar, respectively.

She was also an assistant coach at Ateneo de Manila University before becoming a head coach at Enderun Colleges in 2016, where she clinched six straight championships in the National Athletics Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities.

In the same year, the former Growling Tigress went home to España as a head coach in 2016 and won a UAAP title in Season 86.

Ong is also currently an athletic director at Immaculate Conception Academy High School in Greenhills.

No ‘I’ in team

With Ong overseeing the WMPBL, she made sure her UST, which is also part of the league, continued to run like clockwork even without her.

“Coach Ged Austria handles the UST Growling Tigresses’ in practices and games. I have full trust and confidence in our assistant coaches and of course, we want to empower them as coaches on how they handle the WMPBL,” said Ong, who also appointed Growling Tigresses assistant coach Arsenio Dysangco to be her deputy commissioner in the WMPBL.

“I have been with him for a long time you know that they are capable of doing that job. It’s hard to start at the WMPBL if I’m going to do tryouts for the position.”

“I have known him since grade school since we were classmates at Chiang Kai-Shek. I know how efficient a worker Coach Dysangco is.”

Best of both worlds

For Ong, getting the role of commissioner wasn’t just because she had guts to take it or was it because of her experience as both a player and a coach.

It was both.

“I think when opportunity comes, what’s important to me is that you are prepared for it. Sometimes, we can’t even see the opportunities in front of us and sometimes we grab it but we are unprepared and fail because of it,” Ong said.

“I think my years of experience as a coach and as an athletic director prepared me to be the commissioner of the league.”

Leading a new organization will always have its rough patches.

But for Ong, her experience and love for the game, the friendships she made with other coaches, the respect of the players, and the support of MPBL founder and chief executive officer Manny Pacquiao will be the driving force in helping the WMPBL elevate to a higher level.

True enough, Ong had proven that it’s not impossible to put a woman on top.