Louie Alas, present head coach of Phoenix in the Philippine Basketball Association, is only on his second season in his current position, but looking back at his coaching career, the man certainly has made his mark, but more on the collegiate level where he has led the Letran Knights to three National Collegiate Athletic Association crowns already.
And that is why he remains honest about his preference in coaching, even as he has already reached the dream job for local coaches of being a PBA head coach.
“I still would prefer to coach collegiate players and if there is a good opportunity after my contract with Phoenix, I will definitely consider it,” said Alas.
His reasoning is simple: “I love to teach and in college, you can see the actual results in your players as they develop themselves. In the PBA, the players already know the game, they know what to do and when to do it with the needed skills already there. The job of the coach is more to remind them of these things.”
The fact is, he was ready to leave Alaska (where he was an assistant coach from 2013 to 2017) and accept an offer to coach Perpetual College in 2015 before he was derailed by miscommunication issue, so returning to the collegiate ranks is really not a far-fetched idea.
But the professional that he is and buoyed by the fact that Phoenix reached the semifinals last year for the first time, Alas is focused on the PBA now, where his goal is to make it to the semis in all the three conferences set this year.
“We have proven that we are capable of doing it already and with our acquisition of some new players in trades like Alex Mallari and workhorse Dave Marcelo, we all believe we have strengthened our team for this year,” said Alas.