ATENEO’S struggles are truly unheard of in the Tab Baldwin era.
Leading the Blue Eagles to four UAAP crowns, including a dynastic three-peat from 2017 to 2019, the American-Kiwi mentor going on a run of futility has really been a strange sight for Filipino fans who are used to seeing him steer his teams to the crown.
But Baldwin will be the first to say that it’s not always roses and butterflies in over his four decade-long coaching career.
“I've been there before,” he said, reflecting on his journey as he tries to relate it to his current squad which currently sits dead last in the UAAP Season 87 men’s basketball tournament with a 1-6 win-loss card.
“That's the byproduct of 43 years of coaching. And I’ve been a part of a few struggling teams in the past.”
READ: NU sends Ateneo to last place at end of UAAP Season 87 Round 1
The first of that was in 2007 when he was hired to handle PAOK BC Thessaloniki in Greece.
Replacing Vangelis Alexandris, Baldwin handled the Greek side for five months but stumbled right off the gates to a 1-4 win-loss record to place 12th out of 14 teams.
He was eventually sacked, but PAOK BC’s struggles continued even as they switched with two more head coaches to finish at 12th in the 2007-08 season.
Baldwin also faced the same hardships in his second tour of duty in Turkey back in 2009.
Kepez Belediyesi S.K. had high hopes that the former Tall Blacks mentor could replicate his success with Banvitspor, a squad which he helped to promotion. But instead, Kepez crashed to a 10-20 win-loss card, placing 15th among 16 teams and was relegated to the second division. He was not renewed after one season.
China also wasn’t kind to Baldwin in his lone season with the Fujian Sturgeons in the CBA back in 2012.
With the team led by Chinese national team member Wang Zhelin, former Petron import Will McDonald, and three-year NBA veteran Sundiata Gaines, Fujian could only muster an 11-21 slate to end up at 13th place in the 17-team field.
Baldwin eventually returned back to New Zealand as he was signed by Hawkes Bay Hawks in the NBL, ending his Chinese trip in just one year.
Same struggles, different approach
As similar as those teams were in terms of pulling out victories, the decorated mentor clarified that there’s a stark difference with his present Ateneo team and the aforementioned three.
“They were professional teams and it’s different. The players can release the feelings more easily, but they also tend to stop caring more quickly,” Baldwin said of his previous tough assignments with PAOK BC, Kepez Beledivisi, and Fujian.
“Our [Ateneo] players hold on to the feelings because they care so much. And this is where all the coaches, we have to be mentors and we have to be friends. We have to be tough, we have to be demanding, we have to be all of those things,” he added.
“And in an amateur team in an amateur environment, the feelings are more raw. So the pressure has more impact. And maturing through that process, you hope you can do it quickly because we need to do it more quickly.”
Baldwin, though, understands that it’s all a process – something that the Blue Eagles must endure as they’re in it for the long haul.
“It’s a process and you can't wave a magic wand and wish it to be a certain way. It takes a lot of work and it takes some tough guys to be able to handle that and we're trying to help them be that,” he said.
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