He may not be familiar among Western Visayas sports circles, but like everyone who had known Rico Navarro, I was shocked of his sudden demise.
Last Tuesday afternoon, he was biking on the hills near their residence and was later found lying on the road. I was not that close to him, but each time we meet was a pleasant encounter because Rico was such a soft-spoken and mild-mannered person.
We would regularly bump into each at the old Sacred Heart School campus and when the school became Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu and transferred to a new location, he invited me to join either the football or basketball league for dads. In 2010, he became the school’s athletic director and during his tenure, made the school’s football and basketball teams high school powerhouses.
In my early days as a sportswriter, Rico, with more than two decades of sportswriting, gave me tips and pointers on how to capture the attention of readers. I haven’t gotten to his level of writing yet, and I hope I’ll get to that.
Rico was the Regional Director of Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP-7) and created the Cebu Youth Basketball League, a grass roots basketball program which honed the talents of the likes of now Manila-based players Jun Manzo, Paul Desiderio and Leonard Santillan. The CYBL has now become the MVP Sports Foundation Youth Basketball League-Cebu (MYBL). He was also a popular ring announcer for pro boxing bouts and sat at the board of the Cebu Football Association.
Both residents of the northern town of Liloan, we would come across each other during summer league games. When his son Popoy played for the town’s basketball team together with Desiderio for the Congressional Cup, we would join the team on home and away games and from the sidelines, he would analyze the flow of games.
It has been a while since we had a long one-on-one talk at that airy coffee shop in front of their residence. Our conversation over coffee was mainly about sports sprinkled with talks on family and some politics. I was then connected with the municipal government and we discussed about grass roots sports development which I was very open to the idea. But considering government bureaucracy, plans remained plans forever. There will never be talks over cups of coffee with Rico again.
Rico writes a weekly column “Bleacher Talk” for The Freeman and hosted online shows “Bleacher Talk goes Live,” “Idol Talk” for the MYBL, “Bida BEST Live” for the BEST Center Sports and the “SAC E-numan” for Cebu sportswriters. During this pandemic, he often invited me to join several of his online conferences/chats, but due to the time difference, I never had the chance to link up. Now that he’s gone, there is a kind of regret that I haven’t connected.
The Cebu sporting community had lost an icon as Rico had done so much with very positive results. Cebu and probably the rest of the Visayas and Mindanao will surely feel the void and I don’t know who can aptly fill his shoes. The tributes on local dailies and social media are testament to Rico’s enduring legacy.
It will now be quite on the bleachers as there won’t be any more weekly talks. Life is fragile indeed and at 53, Rico is gone too soon. May God grant you eternal rest, my friend. Until we meet again./PN
