NCC Originals 1981 - Angelito Esguerra

No more cold benches for Itoy

Itoy played for Letran in the NCAA and Crispa in the MICAA before he was 
named to the RP youth team in 1980. Last year, he was in the national team 
that won the SEA Games basketball crown held in Manila. The high-scoring forward, 
groomed to join the Crispa Redmanizers in the PBA, is with Paul Jordan, 
the pacesetting team in the Interclub. Angelito (Itoy) Esguerra got into 
pro basketball in the summer of '83 nurturing a rookie's dream of making 
waves in his maiden season. It was a dream that he never got to realize.
In fact, it would seem that if there's one word that could best sum it up, 
the way things went for the onetime amateur hotshot who started his hardcourt 
career with Letran, it could only be forgettable. Seeing action in his first 
pro game when Crispa took on Toyota in the kick- off game of PBA '83, 
Esguerra went scoreless as the Redmanizers took it flush on the chin from 
the Super Corollas. He came up with 10 points in his second outing, but 
then it was against a lightweight Manhattan team, and there was no way his 
first twin-digit score as a pro could have sent the name Esguerra up in lights.
After that, it was one so-so night after another for the 22-year-old 
Esguerra who ultimately came to the end of his first season in the PBA with 
stats that were anything but impressive.

From Sports Weekly Magazine 80's