ADD “book author” to Sandy Arespacochaga’s long resume.
It’s an unexpected line item in the CV of the veteran coach, whose 22-year coaching career has taken him inside the dugouts of teams like Batang Gilas and TnT Tropang Giga. At the moment, he’s in Belgrade, mentoring the young guns of the national team together with Tab Baldwin and the rest of the Gilas coaches.
Arespacochaga is also among the 27 authors of the anthology Winning Still, a book of essays written by noted athletes and sports personalities that was released last week.
Since he’s abroad at the moment, he hasn’t received his author’s copy of the book. But when SPIN Life asked him if he’d also consider giving copies to Dwight Ramos, Kai Sotto, and the rest of Gilas, Arespacochaga had a witty reply ready.
“Yes, yes. Tapos bibigyan ko sila ng ten percent discount,” he said, laughing.
On a more serious note, he’s immensely proud of the M-W-F Group — a batch of sports personalities who assemble thrice a week on Zoom under the aegis of Noli Ayo — whose weekly talks gave birth to Winning Still.
“The book is a very good showcase of the kind of people that you know that we have in the sporting world,” Arespacochaga said of the various authors behind the essays, which include Jong Uichico, Hidilyn Diaz, Akiko Thomson-Guevara, and more.
One of the key things they discussed in the M-W-F sessions is about finding your “why” — something that he touches on in his own chapter, which is entitled, “Baby Steps to Becoming a Better Person.”

Arespacochaga relates the quest for “why” to Gilas’ own gritty efforts.
"When it comes to national teams, yung 'why' mo talagang nangingibaw. If yung why mo is for yourself, bibitaw ka. Part of our team culture — [emphasized by] the coaching staff, management, and now we can see it from the players na rin — [ay] yung mentality namin is for others,” the coach said.
This “others” could mean a teammate. “You can make a good pass to him when he's open,” related Arespacochaga, “[kasi] hindi importante na ako yung maka-shoot.” But it also extends to something greater.
He tells the young guns, “[Y]ou're here not just for yourself, you're not just sacrificing for yourself, but it's for your family and your friends, for your country. That's very important.”

We conducted the interview before Gilas’ impressive showing against Serbia. But even then, Sandy Arespacochaga knew that this batch of youngsters was truly something special.
“The players now, we didn't win just by showing up in our past games,” he said. “The players performed well because of all the hard work that they put in.”
He added: “Yung mga bata natin, walang takot. They know they have a place among the big boys.”
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