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Fil-Canadian named 'Coach of the Year' in British Columbia

Nap Santos was named 'Coach of the Year' for high school basketball in the entire province of British Columbia.

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Rowena Papasin

TFC News

<div><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WGFht3kb6nU?&amp;ab_channel=ABS-CBNNews&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe> </div>Coach Nap Santos has been teaching high school basketball at the St. Patrick Regional Secondary School in Vancouver for more than 20 years.As head coach of the St. Pat Celtics he brought the team to victory in the British Columbia provincial championships for the past two years.Winning back-to-back is no small feat. And for this, Santos was named BC&#x27;s high school basketball &#x27;Coach of the Year&#x27; for 2023 to 2024.&quot;It says a lot about the program and I guess people recognized it,&quot; Santos said. &quot;I feel very honoured that they would recognise me because it takes a lot of hard work.&quot;Majority of the players for St. Pat Celtics are Filipino-Canadians who are admittedly not as tall as most Canadian ball players.But Santos said what they lack in height, they more than make up for with their heart.&quot;When you play with your heart and you work really hard, the height doesn&#x27;t matter,&quot; he added. &quot;So, &#x27;heart over height&#x27; is our motto and we stick to it.&quot;It would seem as if Santos has never left St. Patrick. It was where he studied from elementary to high school when he also then played for the Celtics.Later on, he went back to Manila to play basketball for Colegio de San Juan de Letran in college. But he said he returned to St. Pat so he can give back to the community.As coach, he brought back with him the lessons that he learned from playing basketball in the Philippines where the sport is much-loved by many.&quot;It&#x27;s more of the &#x27;tiyaga&#x27; or more of the &#x27;gulang,&#x27; aggressiveness,&quot; said Santos. &quot;It&#x27;s different there. I learned the toughness. I&#x27;m not saying that they&#x27;re not tough here, but it&#x27;s a different level of toughness over there. It&#x27;s like life.&quot;Many high school basketball teams are said to be intimidated when they’re up against St. Pat.Ivan Sombillo also also used to play for St. Pat under Santos, whom he described as a basketball genius.The junior coach said Santos has always emphasized to his players the importance of discipline and teamwork&quot;Having just one star player doesn&#x27;t define it. You need all five guys,&quot; Sombillo said. &quot;it takes more than one person. He teaches that all the time.&quot;Santos is proud that his boys have carried this discipline with them in their life. Many of them have gone on to become professionals in their field.&quot;You&#x27;re not going to make every shot that you&#x27;re going to take, but you&#x27;ve got to try,&quot; the coach said. &quot;You&#x27;re going to fail, but how are you going to pick yourself up from failing? From failure comes getting up and trying to do better.&quot;Santos was also recently in Manila for the NBTC basketball tournament, where he was again hailed &#x27;Coach of the Year&#x27; for Division 2, after the Canadian team won the championship in that division.While he felt great winning in his biggest Filipino international tournament yet, Santos said his dream is to become a better coach each day for his boys at St. Patrick&#x27;s.

Nap Santos was named 'Coach of the Year' for high school basketball in the entire province of British Columbia.