SPORTSMANSHIP AT ITS BEST

UV’S Manzo visits USC’s Olago at the hospital, apologizes

A potentially combustible situation was quietly diffused on Thursday morning as finals rivals Jun Manzo of the University of the Visayas (UV) and Shooster Olago of the University of San Carlos (USC) buried the hatchet at Chong Hua Hospital, where the latter has been confined since suffering an abdominal strain in the dying seconds of Game Five of the recently-concluded Cesafi men’s basketball finals.

ALL IS WELL. USC’s Shooster Olago (left) and UV’s Jun Manzo give the thumbs up sign during the latter’s visit to the hospital, where the former is recovering from an abdominal strain.
contributed photo

With the camp of USC getting set to ask for a dialogue with Cesafi commissioner Felix Tiukinhoy and UV team manager Gerald Anthony Gullas regarding the incident involving Manzo and Olago, which saw the former getting ejected from the deciding game after allegedly striking the former with 1:26 left in Game Five, the Green Lancer guard took it upon himself to see the Cameroonian big man and apologize for what happened.
“I just wanted to see him (Olago) in person and personally apologize,” said Manzo, a revelation during the five-game finals series, where he averaged 15.5 points per game. “I also wanted to see how he was doing. I know Shooster and he’s a good guy, on and off the floor.”
The unexpected visit was personally supervised by the Cesafi’s chief medical officer, Dr. Rhoel Dejano.
“They’re both alright now. Shooster said that he held no grudge against Jun (Manzo). He was actually very accommodating,” Dejano said.
While the USC Warriors’ title triumph has been the talk of the town here, so has been the late-game incident involving the schools’ two stars, with many on social media yearning for a harsher penalty for Manzo, who was also involved in an incident with ironically, Olago, in a preseason melee in the town of Medellin. It also doesn’t help that Manzo’s moniker down south is “The Hitman.”
But after seeing the video replay of the said incident, Gullas, quickly came to his ward’s defense.
“I didn’t want to comment because I didn’t see the game or until I saw a replay of the game. Honestly I was hesitant to watch the replay because I knew of the previous history of Jun Manzo. But let me tell you, after the Medellin incident, these UV Green Lancers including the so called ‘Hitman,’ have turned over a new leaf. Most importantly, they are not sore losers, they play hard, they are scrappy, they’ll do everything to win, but again, they are not sore losers,” said Gullas, who also happens to be the representative of Cebu’s First District.