With the impending return of Mayor-elect Tomas Osmeña to the City Hall, will there be also a changing of the guard in the Cebu City Sports Commission (CCSC)?
Edward Hayco has been the chairman of CCSC for the past six years. He was thrust into the job by outgoing Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama in 2010.
Asked if he is prepared for a possible shake-up at CCSC, Hayco had this to say: “Instead of answering that question I would prefer to look back and say that it has been an exciting and meaningful journey. We are glad that we were able to transform lives, one kid at a time, through sports,” said Hayco, who was actually hesitant to discuss the issue.
Enhancing the city’s grassroots sports program has been the main goal of CCSC under Hayco’s leadership.
“I am just grateful that both sides, the opposing parties, were very supportive of CCSC,” said Hayco.
Though appointed by Rama, Hayco got some advice on how to run the CCSC’s grassroots program from Osmeña.
“It was in 2001 when the Dancesport Team Cebu City (DTCC) paid a courtesy call on Mayor Tom and we presented him the first gold that we had ever won. But the mayor told us, ‘I don’t care about winning gold. What I want you to do is to bring that gold to the barangays, teach the children how to win gold,’” Hayco, founder of DTCC, recalled.
Since then, Hayco and DTCC members visited various barangays in Cebu City and trained children, especially the underprivileged ones.
Hayco revealed that 30,000 underprivileged children had benefited from CCSC’s free training sports program in the last 16 years.
When he assumed post as chief of CCSC, Hayco patterned the city’s grassroots program after the DTCC.
“What we did in DTCC, we applied it to other sports under CCSC’s grassroots programs,” said Hayco.
In CCSC’s summer training sports program, the athletes representing Cebu City in national competitions are the ones who teach children learn various sports.
The student-athletes are required to serve as junior coaches so they will be allowed to be part of Team Cebu City.
“We were able to raise the awareness to serve for the betterment of the sports. I cannot say we’ve already perfected it because we can only say so if they start doing it on their own,” Hayco said.
More than teaching children learn various sports and excel in competitions, what matters to Hayco is CCSC’s role in building the athletes’ character.
“If ever you call it an achievement, CCSC was able to help the children realize that it is not all about winning but it’s more of making them believe in themselves,” Hayco said.
Loving the sport more was also one of the things that CCSC instilled in the athletes’ minds.
“We did away with giving of prize money because we wanted to emphasize that being an athlete should not be an obsession for money but a passion for sport,” Hayco said.
CCSC also helped Cebu City gain international fame. In 2009, Cebu City made it to the Guinness World Record for staging the largest dance class with 7,770 participants. Then in 2012, CCSC was able to gather 43,157 participants to establish the world’s biggest chess tournament.
CCSC also attempted to break another world record when it staged an arnis tournament that drew 13,102 participants.
Also in November last year, at least 5,000 children took part in a chess tournament initiated by CCSC.
Documentation is still ongoing to determine if the two events made it to the Guinness World Record.
“We made it clear to the children that it was not about making it to Guinness. The goal was to be part of history. It was one unforgettable moment they will treasure for the rest of their lives,” Hayco said.
“We’ve barely scratched the surface. But I am glad that in my term as head of CCSC, I was able to instill the culture among the coaches and athletes the value of helping each other,” Hayco said.
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