For Philippine-born Pakenham resident Jim Viray, basketball has been the biggest constant in his life since childhood. He’s gone through the gamut of emotions and experiences – from school, to college, to the professional system, to the local representative scene with the Pakenham Warriors. He sat down with RUSSELL BENNETT recently to tell his story.
BASKETBALL is often referred to as a sport without borders. Its ability to reach out and touch people spans the width and breadth of the globe, and for many people it’s far more than just a sport or even a way of life. For some, it is life.
Jim Viray first started playing the sport as a six-year-old back home in the Philippines. His father is a coach and, like Jim’s uncle, a former professional player. Basketball is in their blood.
When Jim was 10 his father encouraged him to take up soccer – but mainly to help with his footwork on the hardwood. He found success early on – winning three straight high school province championships in his formative teenage years. And after school the next logical step was to link up with a college team coached by the same man who mentored his father.
But the sport hasn’t always been so straightforward where Jim is concerned – success often a little harder to find.
“I graduated from Year 12 and went straight to college,” Jim recalled from his Pakenham flat.
“I was only 16 years old and I was really thin.
“I saw the other players there and they were tall and bulky and I asked myself if I could really play at that level.”
For two years he wasn’t sure – having to develop his game in what was essentially the school’s reserves team. He was the third or fourth cab off the rank when it came to swingmen – those adept at both the shooting guard and small forward positions.
“I had to develop my game and lift some weights but I was the go-to-guy of that team and at the start of my third year, I was really happy because that was part of my dream – to play at college,” Jim said.
“I was studying for free.”
He went from playing junk minutes in his first two seasons to, on the eve of his third year, taking stock and realising the opportunities in front of him.
“All of the veteran guys had already graduated,” he said.
“I told myself: ’I think it’s my time now’.”
A rangy lefty shooter with a penchant for getting his nose dirty on the defensive end and rebounding with intent at both ends of the floor, Jim then averaged more than 20 points in the Nike Summer League in his first real chance to shine. He averaged around 20 points and 10 rebounds in what was essentially the Philippine version of the NCAA college tournament in the United States.
As a means of gaining more exposure, and also the chance to earn some money honing his craft, Jim played at the semi-professional level.
He went from getting a college allowance of around $50 per month to getting paid at the semi-professional level.
But Jim then faced another speed hump on the road to his hoop dreams – he applied to play in the Philippine Basketball Association through the draft but wasn’t selected. There were only 10 teams in the league and 80 aspirants desperately hoping for a chance in just two rounds of selections in the rookie draft.
“There were only 20 picks and some of the teams pass because they don’t have enough spots to fill,” Jim said.
“It’s really crowded back in the Philippines – basketball is like a religion over there.
“A coach will see if you’re really good, but sometimes there are some players – because of their money – who get in the team. I definitely wasn’t that.”
Jim’s father always knew his son would be tall with him and his wife around the 6’3″ and 5’7″ mark, so they encouraged him to play on the wing to develop his ball skills.
“He knew I needed to practice my shooting because that would be my weapon if I played professionally or in the collegiate league,” Jim said.
“Every day, before I went to college, he told me to wake up at 5am and go into the grandstand and run around the oval for maybe 10 laps and then after that we’d go for shooting. He just wanted me to be prepared and it helped.”
He’d take around 500 shots in the gym – each and every day. He was hell-bent on making his dream a reality.
“After the draft, an assistant coach on one of the teams told me I could go to their training camp,” Jim recalled.
“I went there the next day and it was jam-packed!”
There were between 30 to 40 players there for the tryouts with 10 players with existing contracts already on the 15-man Barako Bull Energy Boosters roster. The odds were hardly stacked in Jim’s favour.
After training the coach told the prospects to wait for a text message to say whether or not they’d be invited back. Jim got the three magical words he’d been hanging to read: “Come back tomorrow”.
The squad for the Manila-based team was cut in stages from the initial 40, to 30, to 20 and Jim did the subtractions in his head as he survived each stage. He ended up as the 15th man on the roster, but he made it. He was suddenly playing in front of crowds as big as 15,000 for blockbuster clashes in the second oldest professional league in the world. Not bad for a skinny kid from Palawan – only an hour from Manila by plane but about a day by ship.
“We had player agents over there and mine called me and said to come to his office to sign my contract,” Jim said.
“I was only 23 or 24 and it was a dream come true. It’s any basketball player’s dream in the Philippines to play in the professional league but not everyone can do it though.”
Jim took the roster spot of the player his team drafted. He was in better shape than him and had a better work ethic.
Jim’s first salary was between $500 to $600 per month.
“It’s different here – I could get that per week working,” he said.
“The good thing there was that you’re working, and it’s your favourite thing to do as well. It’s not like here – I’m working a different job and I’m playing basketball at night.”
It wasn’t all rosy for him over there as a professional player though. At one stage a group of players he was with needed a military escort for a tense two-hour car trip from Mindanao – an area known for its terrorist activities.
“The mayor there asked for some players to go and hold some basketball clinics and some exhibition games,” Jim said.
“This was in the southern part of the Philippines in Mindanao about a one-and-a-half hour plane ride from Manila.
“When you go there, it’s another two or three-hour long drive and that’s the scary part because we don’t know if the terrorists are there – we don’t know if they’ll stop our car, but the good thing was we had a military escort. We stayed there for two days – Saturday and Sunday.
“It was a good experience because you could see the people and it was in a jam-packed stadium – there were people standing, climbing up posts just to watch the game.”
Jim’s PBA career lasted for two seasons before the rights of the Barako Bull Energy Boosters were sold and he signed on to play in the PBA’s D-League equivalent for players looking to find their way back on to the main stage.
In Jim’s first PBA season, he estimates playing in only “four or five” games – like at the start of his college journey he was on the end of the bench, forced to prove himself all over again.
Almost cruelly his break-out came towards the end of year two, where his minutes increased from two or three per game to around 30.
Jim then toiled hard in the league’s second tier but his wife Argin – herself a basketball player from the Philippines – told him to be practical.
Her family had moved to Australia in 2009 and in 2011 Jim followed suit.
“She told me I wasn’t getting enough money from basketball – that it was time to move away and come here and I agreed,” he said.
Jim’s last game in the Philippines was arguably his best. He scored 23 points and was the best player on the court, knowing that 24 hours later he’d be starting his new life in Australia.
During Jim’s five years at college he was studying a Bachelor of Business Management. But he never completed it – basketball was always first and foremost on his mind.
When he arrived in Australia some of his priorities changed – he knew he had to find work that didn’t involve basketball and any team he played for outside of that had to be close to home.
He rode a pushbike from his home hear McGregor Road around town looking for courts to play on. He found one at a school in just a couple of blocks, while Cardinia Life was just a short five-minute drive away.
Jim was initially too shy to sign up for the Pakenham Warriors’ Big V tryouts but he plucked up the courage towards the end of last year and, inevitably, his talent and his ability to be the one to sink a big shot when it mattered came to the fore. In an up and down season for the luckless Warriors – when they had the highest number of wins in team history but missed out on a playoff berth – Jim shone. Now 29, he led the team in scoring; finishing with 15.2 points per game and 5.7 rebounds. The nucleus of the side will be back next season for another crack at playoff glory and Jim’s pre-season is already well underway. Whenever he can, he’s getting those early morning jump shots up – just like his father taught him.
