{"id":178560,"date":"2014-09-08T04:00:37","date_gmt":"2014-09-07T18:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=178560"},"modified":"2014-09-08T04:00:37","modified_gmt":"2014-09-07T18:00:37","slug":"jericho-intimidated-rain-shine-coach-guiaos-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/jericho-intimidated-rain-shine-coach-guiaos-presence\/","title":{"rendered":"Jericho intimidated by Rain or Shine coach Guiao\u2019s presence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jericho<\/a>
Jericho Cruz, center, is hoping to shake off his rookie jitters when he makes his debut for Rain or Shine in the Philippine Basketball Association. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nIntimidating is the first word that Jericho Cruz could think of when he first met Rain or Shine head coach Yeng Guaio during the Elasto Painters\u2019 practice.<\/p>\n

After all, Guiao is an imposing figure in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) where he is one of the very vocal mentors in Asia\u2019s first pay-for-play league.<\/p>\n

Guiao is a known disciplinarian when it comes to coaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kind of scary to approach [Coach Yeng], I just talked to him once during our team practice,\u201d said the former Adamson Soaring Falcon.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach Yeng has that intimidating look, but I know he\u2019s a good guy. He is just a disciplinarian, wants his players to follow his system and the plays that they practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cruz added that he is excited to play in his first PBA game under Guiao where he is hopeful to make a good impression. \u201cI\u2019m ready to learn and correct my mistakes. Or else [Guiao] will be shouting at me the whole game, hahaha!\u201d<\/p>\n

Guiao, who is also congressman of Pampanga province\u2019s first district in the House of Representatives, has four PBA titles\u2014three with Red Bull and one with Rain or Shine\u2014under his belt as he helped turn franchises with no big name players into champions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m ready to take on the challenge. I can\u2019t wait to play and I\u2019m excited. But I still feel rookie jitters since this will definitely be a whole new ballgame for me. Far from the lights of the Garapan open basketball court where my love for basketball started,\u201d said Cruz.<\/p>\n

Cruz was drafted ninth overall in the first round by Rain or Shine in last month\u2019s PBA annual rookie draft to join fellow Philippine team member Kevin Alas under the Elasto Painters\u2019 franchise. (Jon Perez)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Intimidating is the first word that Jericho Cruz could think of when he first met…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":178564,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[310,65],"class_list":["post-178560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-basketball","tag-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}