Coach Kevin Barbosa is the man credited by Sta. Lucia team manager Buddy Encarnado and Coach Boyet Fernandez for making them the Champion in this PBA All-Filipino Conference. Both of them have been very vocal about the off-season workout with the world renowned American coach that has done miracles for their team this conference. Coach Kevin Barbosa has now graciously extended his expertise to physically and mentally train our younger players. To help prepare and mold them not only into better players, but better people as well.

After overcoming limited funding and tight schedules, the Grace Alumni Basketball League (GABL) tried to provide the best training ground for both the High School and Alumni teams by bringing in this high caliber coach. A four day basketball workout was organized by GABL, for the Varsity and Alumni team which represents Grace Christian High School in various leagues and tournaments. Despite semi-lackluster facilities, the attendees were thoroughly trained for more than two hours each night on important areas such as dribbling, passing, shooting and running. The attendees were also taught the value of fundamentals and sticking to the basics.

As much as the GABL would like to provide this event free for our athletes as stated in the GABL objectives,–our long term goal is to be able to raise enough fund to provide athletic scholarship to deserving student-athlete of Grace Christian High School- the league is still far from that goal.

Quality teaching don’t come cheap these days, teams like Sta. Lucia, different teams from Canada and South America even fly to Boston to learn the ”Boston Basketball Training Workout” by Coach Barbosa. Two other teams from the PBA, Coke and Air21, immediately grabbed the opportunity to train under Barbosa when they found out he’s services are available in Manila. They knew that it’s a chance to get quality teaching for a cheaper value since they don’t need to bring the whole team to Boston.

GABL hope this would be a yearly event to provide better teaching for our athletes and help them build their confidence, since Coach Barbosa was the man credited for bringing a sellar-dweller to Champions. This is also an eye opener for athletes, who are used to being sellar dweller, that quality teaching and discipline can turn a team around.

This rare event would not have been possible without the help of Nelson Chua, Atty. Gabriel Dee, Benjamin So, Power Construction, Danilo Ching, Gerald Gan and Greensports, Inc.