Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Filipino named head coach for the Miami Heat

As Pat Riley resigned from coaching the Miami Heat, he didn't chose ex-coaches or coaches from other teams to take over his position. Instead, he chose someone from his own organization, one of his assistant coaches, Erik Spoelstra.

Image source: Miami Herald

Erik is of Irish, Dutch and Filipino descent, with her mom being pure Filipina. He played four years for the University of Portland and was a player-coach for a professional basketball team in Germany.

He joined the Miami Heat in 1995 as a video coordinator before he became assistant coach and director of scouting for the organization. Pat Riley has been grooming this prodigy who was also responsible for the improvement of their superstar, Dwyane Wade during their championship year in 2006.

Erik is now the NBA's youngest head coach entering the 2008-2009 season, 69 days younger than current New Jersey Nets coach Lawrence Frink. Despite the age, Riley and the rest of the Heat players respects and believes in him to steer the team to the right direction.

''I believe in [Spoelstra] and have complete confidence that our team will succeed with him at the helm,'' Wade said.

Even veteran Alonzo Mourning, 38, the only player on the roster older than the head coach, said he is ''proud'' of Spoelstra and believes the rookie coach can "take the organization back to our winning ways.''

I hope that he would succeed and show the world how talented we Filipinos are. I'm excited for him and the Heat next season.

Additional Reading:
Erik Spoelstra: He puts the Heat on

Riley resigns as Heat coach; Erik Spoelstra to take over

4 comments:

Marilou / Lucky Cow Shop said...

parang masyadong nagiging uso ang Pinoy/Pinay became.... on other countries ah

Calv said...

hehe madalas ko lang naisusulat. :P or baka lagi kang nanonood ng news hehehe. ok nga eh :)

Anonymous said...

you had a lot of typos
get those fixed

Calv said...

care to help me out? looks ok to me.

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