By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
The Iloilo City Sports Academy is slowly gaining the attention they deserve.
During the Wilson Tennis PH Podcast, widely-renowned tennis coach Karl Santamaria talked about Iloilo City and how the sports program prospered amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They have this program in Iloilo City yung La Paz tennis courts doon. They were able to work with the local government to give a free training for the kids. Ang ganda ng program nila doon,” said coach Santamaria.
Coach Santamaria even bared in the podcast that he visited Iloilo last December and went to one of the tennis sessions in the sports program and applauded the initiative by Executive Assistant for Sports Rudiver Jungco Sr.
During their meeting last December, coach Santamaria even said that the Iloilo tennis sports program is on the right track and vowed to help them whenever they needed a coaches’ seminar in the future.
“You can see in the photos that they’re posting there, daming kids! Ang malaking bagay na ginawa nila doon is yung time na allotted for the kids. Kasi usually yung oras na 4 to 8 pm is para sa mga club members so yung mga bata na kakatapos lang mag school hindi nakakalaro,” added coach Santamaria.
What amazed coach Santamaria most was how the Iloilo City Sports Academy sacrificed their time and how they gave importance to these kids, one thing that is commonly missing among the training programs in the Philippines.
Coach Santamaria is a former Davis Cup player for the country, a former Southeast Asian Games coach, a world juniors coach, a 22-time UAAP Tennis champion, an ITF Level 2 certified coach, and the current National University head coach.
