New-New

By Angelica P. Lim

At 21 years old, he would have been in his final year in New Mexico Highlands University. Majoring in Music, he could have been on his way to a rap career, or engineer to the next big Billboard hit. But, instead, he is thousands of miles away from family, friends, and the life that he knows—and rather than edging closer towards his final stage in the academe, he sits in freshmen English and Algebra classes, re-visiting concepts he thought he was done with. Christopher Newsome—you may have seen his name pop up in local basketball forums, close followers of the Ateneo Blue Eagles spurred discussion of the 6’2 Fil-Am Guard as early as March; or you may have noticed him sitting along the fringes of the Blue Eagles’ bench during UAAP games, but if the name or the face has yet to resonate with you, Chris is one of the newest members of the four-peat contingent, set to make his UAAP debut in 2013. 

Why do you love it?

It’s a question that confronts anyone who chooses to pursue a certain career path. Often the ones overflowing with passion or those who have had to overcome hardships and struggle are those with great stories. Athletes on the other hand, more often than not, give the most cliché close-ended answers—makes for boring interviews really: I love to win, I do it for the fans, I like the feeling of stepping onto the court with the crowd cheering you on, I just love the game.

But, when Chris Newsome was confronted with the question, the answer that followed was different, unexpected. It wasn’t that it was life changing or inspiring, it was that it was candid and brutally honest—perhaps the most honest answer I had ever heard from a collegiate sports man. He didn’t need a moment to collect his thoughts or to formulate a PR laced answer that would make him and the Ateneo franchise look good; he simply said, “I don’t know.”

Not the answer one would expect form a basketball player who just moved half way across the world just to play ball—but it was real.

“I really don’t know, you just get the excitement for it.” The rudimentary answer was perhaps rooted down to the fact that basketball wasn’t his first sport, or because where he hailed from basketball was not the Holy Grail.

With several sports leagues in the USA—MLB, NFL, MLS, NBA—Chris says, “Basketball [in New Mexico] is not as big as it is [in the Philippines]. It’s a far cry from the popularity of the UAAP.”

“I got to watch an Ateneo-La Salle game last year and I’ve never experienced anything like it,” he says. The rivalry is indeed one that is unique to Philippine basketball, a delicacy that has even made the pages of the “New York Times,” when journalist Rafe Bartholomew wrote about it.

New Mexico, a highly culturally diverse state, with the highest percentage of Hispanics and the second highest percentage of Native Americans has a sports culture that is equally diverse. Several notable professional sports teams are based in New Mexico: the Albuquerque Isotopes, Triple A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers (baseball), New Mexico Thunderbirds, NBA D-League (basketball), New Mexico Mustangs, North American Hockey League (ice hockey), and the New Mexico Renegades, Western States Hockey League (ice hockey). In New Mexico, basketball is just another sport. The most telling statistic: out of the notable alumni that the New Mexico Highlands University athletics program has produced, only one is an NBA player, and the rest—Len Garett, Charlie Cowan, Len Garett, Lionel Tayler, Don Woods—are NFL players.

Newsome could have very well followed that path, his first sport was American football, “I only tried out for [the basketball team] in middle school, did very well and started to progress. Then High school was when I got really serious about it and stopped playing American Football,” he says.

A 6′ 2″ guard for the New Mexico Highlands University in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference of the US NCAA Division II averaging 9.1 points, 4.1 rebounds, 2.8 assists, Newsome was a part of the team that broke the NCCA record for most turnaround wins in all divisions. Led by former professional basketball player, Coach Joe Harge, in the 2008-2009 season, the Cowboys went from 1-28 to 20-8, going on to win the west division of the RMAC.

That season, Newsome was a sophomore, his future probably looked set—complete his remaining two years with the Cowboys, cap off his basketball career with a major championship and perhaps even some individual accolades along the way. But, one trip to the Philippines changed everything.

In one summer, Newsome went from just another would-be college graduate and aspiring professional basketball player, with no real opportunities basketball-wise, to a player with a window of tangible options ahead of him. During the summer of 2010, Newsome, along with his two sisters and his parents, went to the Philippines for the first time. “I told my coach that I was going to go to the Philippines. So My coach, who had some connections in the Philippines contacted Talk N’ Text coach, Chot Reyes, I went to the Moro Gym to watch Talk and Text practice and that’s when I met Norman Black,” he says.

The Ateneo coach was the first to bring up the possibility of him playing in the Philippines. 19 at that time, Coach Black laid the option of joining Ateneo. For Newsome, it was an attractive prospect, “my future in basketball in the States would only take me so far. But in the Philippines I actually have the opportunity to some day play in the PBA,” he says.

“My family knew about Ateneo, and just knowing that Ateneo was a really good school with a good basketball program showed that it was a great opportunity for me.”

Then in the summer of 2011, local newspapers reported that a sophomore from the New Mexico Highlands University was Ateneo bound, and was on Coach Norman Black’s pool of players to consider for the 2011 Southeast Asian Games. That player was indeed, Chris Newsome.

“It was a tough decision,” Newsome admits, “ [but] staying in the States would mean only four years of basketball, and that’s it. If I didn’t take this chance I wouldn’t know my options,” he says.

Newsome’s venture into the Philippine basketball scene is a common case of the Fil-Am invasion. Players with even a tint of Philippine heritage living in the United States flock to the Philippines to pursue greater options in basketball. UP’s Mike Silungan, Smart Gilas and Ateneo big-man, Greg Slaughter, PBA standouts Kelly Williams, Gabe Norwood, and PBA rookies Chris Lutz, and Marcio Lassiter are just a portion of the long list of players that took the big leap of faith to pursue basketball in the Philippines.

Moving, however, does come with its own setbacks; the UAAP requires two years of residency for foreign transferees. Though the waiting period is quite a big ask, Newsome remains optimistic that he made the right decision to move,  “Who knows what could happen out here, whether it is the PBA or whatever it is,” he says.

It need not be said—the Philippines is a basketball crazy nation. No matter how physically incompatible we are to this game of hoops, we continue to love it unconditionally. In spite of the unguaranteed ROI, there are players that would do everything it takes to play ball. Stepping foot onto the grandeur stage of the PBA, or more so the NBA, is the ultimate dream; though only a few passionate youngins will make it, it is players like Chris Newsome, players who place so much faith into the game, that fuel the eternal flame that is Philippine Basketball.