In most cases, professional athletes have a hard time handling retirement. However, Alex Cabagnot, who is currently still peaking with the San Miguel Beermen, is already preparing for life after the spotlight is gone.
At the young age of 33 year old, San Miguel’s floor general was seen during the University of the Philippines’ UAAP Season 79 debut as part of the coaching staff Bo Perasol.
“I asked Coach Bo if i could help out in UP in any way possible,” the second overall pick in the 2005 PBA Draft shared. “He assigned me to the guards. [Developing] the skills of the guards, ball-handling, just to teach the guys stuff, how to have less turnovers and stuff like that.”
Even with the PBA Governors Cup still underway, the 6’0″ guard makes sure he attends the practices of the Fighting Maroons as long as the schedule permitted it.
“I make an effort to build a rapport with the guys because it’s not gonna be fair to them if I just show up once every two weeks.
“I pretty much show up twice, three times a week, depending on the San Miguel schedule,” he said.
Handling a young team is nothing new to Cabagnot as he has been running a sports academy in the United States. Looking at the current UP backcourt, Cabagnot sees nothing but potential from them.
“All of them have great potential. I understand that they’re really young, the only one who’s in his last playing year is Jett [Manuel] and he has great potential, he has great upside,” he remarked.
“I like all of them. The good thing about them is hindi mo naman kailangan sila i-force to work extra after practice. They come up to me and they say coach let’s do some drills, let’s work on some things that the PBA players will do, or let’s work on things that they usually don’t see.”
“Sila ang naga-alok sa akin. Hindi naman ako yung nagsasabi, so I commend them for that,” he furthered.
Looking forward to the possibility of having a career in coaching, Cabagnot is trying to absorb everything he could learn from coach Perasol.
“Hopefully, hopefully. That’s why I’ve been learning from Coach Bo,” Cabagnot, who played under coach Bo with the Coca Cola Tigers during the late 2000’s, said. “I knew how patient he was, I knew how understanding, and just very diligent.”
“He’s a great coach to learn from. It’s been great, he’s been teaching me a lot,” he closed.
