Remembering Norberto “Norby” Rivera (+) on his birthday ( Apr 30 )

Remembering Norberto “Norby” Rivera (+) on his birthday ( Apr 30 )
Eternal repose grant unto Norberto “Norby” Rivera, o Lord.

Source : Sports Weekly Magazine/Scoreboard (PBA Archives Collections)

PBA pioneer
7-season PBA veteran 
1972 Asian Youth gold medalist
Gilbey’s Gin pioneer player
San Sebastián Stag

Nearly two decides early two decades ago the Philippines Herald, now defunct, sponsored a city-wide basketball tournament summer affair that involved hundreds of teams from midgets to juniors to seniors. Of the thousands who played in the league one stood out, a pugnacious, sweet-shooting, roughhousing center-forward who for his height of 5-feet, 10 inches leaped high as if a towering six footer he was. In one game he rammed home 37 points on bulldoze drives and lobos. high-arching one-hand jumpers released on the fadeaway. H was easily the league's standout and soon enough he was in the Manila Industrial and Commercial Athletic Association (MICAA) as a San Miguel Brewery Brave His name was Francisco Rivera. Paquito to most. and one of the more pro minent players to be spawned at the Legaspi Athletic Club hardcourt on Lealtad and Governor Forbes streets. Later a younger brother. Eduardo Rivera, was to earn his spurs as a San Beda Red Lion and then an Yco Redshirt. Eddie lacked the defiant stop-meif-you-can stance of his older brother on lane drives but had deadly sights from the top-ofthe-keyhole perimeter which stood him good stead in his post of guard. All this and being born and grown in the immediate vicinity of Legaspi A.C.. absorbing the game he was exposed to at all times of the day, waking up to bounce of ball on cement and thrilling to knowing the thenheroes of bigtime basketball: Miguel Littaua of Ateneo then Seven-Up fame; Roberto Littaua who was to blaze to scoring honors in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as Ateneo's deadliest Blue Eagle at the time Francis Wilson was the terror of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP). could not but make a basketball player of Norberto Rivera. Norby Rivera a big man on the hardcourt at age 21, good enough to have made the Asian Youth team of 1972. and good enough to play a key role in San Miguel Corporation's first ever triumph in the National Seniors this year. Norby Rivera hirsute-chested forward of the San Sebastian whose College Golden Stags titanic leaps for rebounds and dizzying play underneath the basket are a thrill to watch. Norby Rivera in whose expressive eyes tears well fast at a chiding who is still a boy man or man/boy un-inured to the rise and ebb of basketball fortunes, still unable to accept defeat with a shrug, still susceptible to wracking sobs in victory or defeat. It was on April 30, 1952, that this son of Paquito and Elena (nee Sarete) Rivera was born. A puny thing. Paquito recalled. who did not inherit the barrel chest of his sire. But the boy grew up keen on basketball; he had little choice. Just as the game is the national sport, so is it the game at the Lealtad-Forbes junction, then as now. Norby battled ferociously for rebounds against taller boys. He developed a spring to put his arching jumpshots beyond the reach of guards. Norby was barely 14 years old when he became a member of the MLQ high school team. He did not last long as a Baby Python, for Jose Rizal College's Jose Cabuso spotted him in action and liked what he saw. If Joe Cabusao had any doubts about the potentiality of the boy. this was dispelled by the knowledge of Norby's relations with Paquito and Eddie Rivera. For the next three seasons Norby was a JRC Lightie, during which time he at one time scored 32 points "my best in the NCAA." Norby said