CLARK FREEPORT – First impression doesn’t last. At least in the case of coach Tim Cone.
The Barangay Ginebra mentor initially saw Mark Caguioa as snobbish and ‘mayabang’ especially when he was in his prime and winning PBA championships.
Oh, Cone remembers how much he dislikes Caguioa back then when he was still at the helm of Alaska.
“Honestly when I was still over at the other team, I kind of thought he’s kaunting mayabang, the ‘Fast and the Furious,’ we all hated them,” said Cone, a smile on his face still obvious beneath the mask as he talks about the resident Ginebra star player.
All those perceptions went away once the PBA’s most successful coach of all time finally got to work with the 40-year-old Caguioa.
“He’s a special person, and I didn’t know that until I came here,” said Cone. “But now I’m over here, I realized how a great guy he is, truly. I never knew him before I came to the team. That was probably the biggest surprise I felt when I came to Ginebra and find out out what kind of person Mark Caguioa is.”
But Caguioa, the 2012 league MVP, lets in on a private conversation he had with Cone a decade or so when the 62-year-old mentor told him once how he would love to coach him.
“There’s one time, I don’t know if he remembers it, but he tells me na gusto niyang ma-experience coaching me. I don’t know if he remembers that but I think that was in 2006 or 2007 like that,” said Caguioa, who now holds the record for the longest tenure of a player in a single franchise at 18 seasons.
Cone didn’t directly admit the story, but said he once thought about how having Caguioa under him while the Glendale Community College alum was at the peak of his career.
“I can imagine what it was like having him when he was in his prime of his career, when he’s putting up big numbers, and they were winning championships,” said Cone. “I remember trying to figure out schemes on how to stop him. So I would love to have him when he was young.”
He did get to join Caguioa at Ginebra, although at a time when the veteran guard was past his dominant years.
But Cone has no regrets.
“I’m enjoying him now when he’s older,” said the Ginebra coach. “He’s such a nice guy to be around.”
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