CHICAGO - Unfortunately, one of the PBA's worst-kept secrets became a reality yesterday when the Meralco Bolts announced a coaching change.
Coach Norman Black is out.
If the league had a flag, it must be flown at half-mast to mourn the exit of one of its most successful head coaches whose legacy includes a grand slam and 11 championships.
He won in college, too, steering the Ateneo Blue Eagles to five straight UAAP titles from 2018 to 2012.
Most importantly, coach Black is a winner in life, a caring son, a devoted husband, a doting dad, beloved by his peers, and celebrated by the media who covered him through his hoops journey in the Philippines.
So why the hell did Meralco nudge him into a consultant's role?
ONLY GOD KNOWS
But like the good, loyal soldier that he's always been, Norman is at peace with the decision.
"My commitment is to help bring that elusive championship to the Meralco franchise. All I can tell you is once a coach, always a coach. So let's see what happens moving forward," he told me in a telephone interview.
For now, though, coach Norm plans to step away from the grind and take care of some personal business.
"I will be going home to close my mom's estate. I would have had to do that even if I had not been replaced," added Black, whose coaching career began in 1985 with San Miguel. Except for one year, he had coached in all those 38 years.
That streak of sustained excellence is now snapped.
How it ended, though, is perplexing, mystifying given that the Bolts had just come off another playoff appearance.
OVERPERFORMED HIS CONTRACT
In his tenure at Meralco, Black did a lot more with so much less, willing the team to multiple semifinals appearances.
Management, I was told, demanded that winning a championship was the only path that would allow Black to keep a job that paid him in the high six figures a month.
But for the Bolts, as presently constituted, to win a chip was an unrealistic task given that they do not have the same manpower, talent and resources as sister team TNT, the flagship franchise of the MVP Group.
We all know Norman has a cherubic charm but he ain't St. Anthony. He coaches brilliantly but he doesn't do miracles.
In his nine glorious years at Meralco, Black made do with what he was given. Somehow it wasn't enough.
It's the kind of frustration former FBI director Edgar J. Hoover once dealt with when he famously said: "About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends."
I don't feel sorry for Norman Black.
I feel sorry for the Meralco Bolts.
This loss is theirs to bear.
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