ATENEO DE CEBU ATHLETIC DIRECTOR RICO NAVARRO
Year 2020 is not over yet but this year will be remembered as one of my most tragic year.
As if the Covid 19 pandemic is not enough, what makes me more sad are the death of two of my close friends.
Their deaths are already bad enough but what is worst and tragic is that these friends are great supporters of the beautiful game.
The passing away of Ateneo de Cebu’s Rico Navarro and Film Maker Albert Almendralejo is a blow to the Philippine football community.
Rico is known not only to the Cebu football community but also to the basketball community. He also has a sports column at the The Freeman Daily newspapers. He was only 53 years old when he died of a heart attack after biking last Oct. 27, 2020.
He has been the pillar of the Ateneo de Cebu sports program and is responsible for making the school a powerhouse in not only in football but also in other sports like basketball.
Before Rico became the Athletic Director of Ateneo de Cebu, the school was a perennial loser in the Cebu sports competitions.
During my time as a General Secretary for the Age group category in the Cebu Football Association, I could not remember the School (then known only at Sacred Hear School) joining any competition we organised.
There was one old Spanish Jesuit priest who was in charge of the sports department during the 80’s. Through him I invited the school countless of times but every time I go to the school he would not even talk to me. I would just give him the invites and go.
The school would not even dare join the local basketball competitions except for the insignificant Catholic Schools competitions. It was because the school did not have proper sports programs. When Rico joined the school as Athletic Director, he immediately introduced a strong athletic program which has now become the envy of may schools.
Ateneo de Cebu has become a sports powerhouse in Cebu and has won football, basketball, futsal, athletics and other events titles. The school has even represented Central Visayas in various Palaro and national competitions.
Ateneo de Cebu football head coach Bing-bing Colina and the rest of the school’s coaches are now sad for there a vacuum that Rico has left in the Ateneo Athletics office. Of course they will find someone to replace him, but that someone will have very big shoes to fill in.
I met Albert Almendralejo during the Little Azkals training in Loughborough, England in 2013.He organised and accompanied a selection of U-11 football players from the Philippines for a month long training and tune-up games.
During that time he was with a camera crew documenting every move of the 22 young players and their three coaches. Albert was a film maker and a Marketing specialist. He was the president of SPEARS which organised the Football For a Better Life programs of UK’s premier insurance company Pru-Life UK.
The program conducted coaching programs by national players and coaches and organised various football festivals.
As a film maker he also produced the Little Azkals documentary which came out in various movie houses in 2014. Two years ago his outfit also produced another documentary about ‘Journeyman Finds a Home’. The docu chronicled the story of Filipino-Italian footballer Simone Rota in his search for his birth parents in the Philippines.
Albert was also a big supporter of CdO football and local media. He had a big heart. He would never say no to me whenever, I requested for sponsorships in my football tournaments. He would also place ads in the local newspaper that I used to manage.
Albert suffered a heart attack after catching the dreaded Covid 19 virus last August. His passing away has left another vacuum in the football community. Without him who would dare to produce another football documentary?
Rico and Albert are irreplaceable. However, without them football will have to move on. (l.biantan@gmail.com)
