Remembering Orlando "Orly" Bauzon (+) on his birthday ( Nov 17 )

Remembering Orlando "Orly" Bauzon (+) on his birthday ( Nov 17 )
Eternal repose grant unto Orlando "Orly" Bauzon, o Lord.

PBA pioneer
University of Santo Tomas guard
4-season PBA veteran
2-PBA team player
3x PBA champion

Source : Assorted Magazines (PBA Archives Collections)

While Arnaiz is all fire and brimstone (I'm "pikon," he admitted) Orlando Bauzon is Mr. Enigmatic. Cool and collected. this soft-spoken Pangasinense (from Calasiao, Pangasinan) who stands 6-foot-1 and weighs a hefty 180 lbs. would qualify as "Mr. Model Husband" if there be such a contest. Sundays you see him with wife Maria Josefina (nee Vivar) with three-year-old Maria Rhodora in tow at the Lourdes Church in La Loma, Quezon City, a stone's throw from the Bauzon residence, Other mornings you will spot him strolling with wife and kid (sometimes with 15-month-old Maria Verenica, their second baby) at the Luneta at 7. a.m. Orly Bauzon is humble but not apologetically, proud but not boastfully. He is content to stay in the background (as he was during the Sports World interview, where he patiently waited while Francis was being interviewed and was the last man out of the Comets" dugout; he showered only after the inter view), and just play the solid game that made him a stalwart of UST, Ysmatt Steel, Meralco and Mariwasa. In 1964 he was a Tokyo Olympics alternete, and four years later he made Mexico. There were sounds of disapproval when Orly was kept out of the Munich five and included instead in the Pesta Sukan team, but the man merely said "the selection comn:ittee knew best." At the time, though. he had just undergone an operation for a torn ligament in his left knee and this could have been a contributing factor to his being placed in the Asian tournament, where injury to the leg was less clianced. Francisco Bato, ex-UST Goldie, discovered him during a training session in Calasiao. But Bauzon first tried out with Far Eastern University under Peping Yee. He didn't make the grade and was dropped in 1962 Fely Fajardo saw the promise Yee didn't and took him in, and Bauzon helped give UST a share of the 1963 UAAP cake and the inter-collegiate championship. His teammates then were Mot: Belmonte (now of SMC), Renato Reyes (of Yco), Hector Hipolito. Since his selection for the 1965 ABC tournament in Kuala Lumpur, Bauzon had been in the national teams for the 1968 Asiad in Bangkok, '67 ABC In Korea when the Philippines recovered the title; 1969 ABC In Bangkok, 70 Asian Games in Bangkok and the Pesta Sukan in Singapore last year. How is his knee? He showed Sports World two scars running almost parallel on the inside of his left knee. It took 29 stitches to sew up the twin slits, and six months for the leg to gain its old power. "I think I've got some more years left in me for basketball," said the 28-year-old cager, who is a commerce, major in management graduate and a "safetyman" supervisor of Meralco. Born Nov. 17, 1945 to Isidro Bauzon and Alejandra Decena. who but for basketball may not have gone bayond Pangasinan School of Arts and Trades (where he took up drafting), Orly Bauzon is pretty satisfied about life. "I'm well again, with a wonderful wife (who is a college professor teaching Spanish and physical education at UE) and two wonderful girls, a good job and a good place to go home to (at Sta. Mesa Heights) ...what more could I ask for?" he said softly with an engaging grin that almost closed his small but warm, friendly eyes. Maybe a Corona 73 for the Beetle he now drives, came the answer, and Orly smiled some more and whispered "yes..." E.A.P.T.