Roy Sy (People 2011: Week 2)

Author's note: For 2011, I have decided to write about certain people in my life that have touched me during those times. These people, I may have interacted during that week or not, but surely I have remembered them. This is my response to a call to be always grateful at all times.

Roy Sy

Roy is an alumnus of De La Salle Canlubang (DLSC), and is the de facto coach/business manager of the DLSC Typhoons - their local Ultimate team which was originally put up by him and their alumni association. (Roy, if you are reading this, I don't know if it's de facto, or you really have a formal appointment. To everyone else, look up for Ultimate frisbee for the use of the word ultimate in this entry and coming entries, as I am into that sport).

His work in his team is pretty much the same as mine in my local team, the Makiling Ultimate Club (MUC), the organization that I founded with other UPLB alumni and students who are in love with the sport. We organize our teams for trainings, pick-ups (an anyone-may-play game during afternoons or mornings - this is an Ultimate term), etc. The first time that we have met was March last year in their 1st ever Disc Festival; we we're not even MUC yet by then, but that particular mini-tournament inspired us to make our rag-tag team more formal, which led us to where we are now, a recognized organization in the university.

After that mini-tourn, I met him in two of the several hat tournaments I attended last year: in UP Diliman for the DUO hat and at DLS Dasmariñas' LUgawan hat. A hat is a tournament where people come in as individuals and not as a team. Players are shuffled into separate teams, which is quite an experience really, as you are tested to adapt to the playing skills and habits of your "instant" teammates. Typhoons organized a hat last December, but I was not able to attend as I opted to go to a concurrent hat tournament in the north that day.

The thing with hat tournaments is that it does not require heavy work from me and Roy as we just need to urge people from our respective teams to come to those events. We go, play, and enjoy. So easy breezy for us, that is until early this year as news circulated in the Ultimate community about the upcoming New Year's League - a six week team competition which is one of the yearly leagues organized by the Philippine Ultimate Association (PUA).

Both Typhoons and MUC were not really sure of joining the league. Not really sure bordering on not joining. We had six people who were really eager to join, and they had five. One week before the deadline of bids, I contacted him and opened the idea of a merger. It went smoothly actually. We had the numbers; we were actually joining the league! The event that followed two days before (Jan 12) the deadline (Jan 14) made our merger a failure, but a success for both teams.

It was finalized that the league venue would be Nuvali. More people from both our teams got interested as the venue was accessible to both teams. Venue was one of the inhibitions of my teammates as a 6 weekend Manila trip would be a burden, especially to members who are yet students. As I am writing this, our team size has already ballooned to 28! Our merged team had to split, but it was not due to anything bad.

I remember the day after the deadline of bids, I told Roy I was in cloud nine. Haha. Our excitement was just overflowing that our respective home teams would finally have their PUA league birth. We were also very pleased about how we worked with each other, our correspondence was what Ultimate about - Spirit of the Game® on and off-court. And to make things even more exciting, our teams will see action and will eventually meet in the league as competitors because we are in the same pool!