What happened?

I mean, why did Meralco lose steam, energy, in the end?

It had tools to go beyond the quarters.

It had Ryan Gregorio, a winning coach.

It had MVP, the most generous sports patron the country has ever had the last 10 years or so.

Why did Meralco sputter, even losing to a team that it was supposed to defeat in the battle for a semifinal seat?

I refer to B-MEG Derby Ace, the squad so brilliantly coached by Gregorio until the lure of the future snapped the romance.

I have one thesis: Maybe, just maybe, had MVP picked Robert Jaworski to coach Meralco, it would have made a difference.

Jaworski was an original Meralco player when the PBA wasn’t born yet and the no. 1 league back then was the Micaa.

Weeks before the resurrection of Meralco, Ricky Vargas, a very trusted lieutenant of MVP, asked me: “Do you believe Jaworski should be it as coach of Meralco?”

My reply was quick as Billy the Kid the fastest draw in the West many years back: “Yes!”

In coaching, as in managing anything from corporate to carburetor affairs, knowledge of the game is but incidental.

What is very material is the stature of the one running the show.

Jaworski may be behind in modern-day coaching techniques, but that downside is easily obliterated by his charisma, aura and stature that he automatically brings into the hardcourt each time he appears.

Phil Jackson is 65, uses old-fashioned tactics (the triangle included), and look what he has accomplished – and will continue to accomplish – thus far for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Nothing but honors here and there.

In anything, nothing beats CAS (charisma, aura and stature).

Obama had CAS and became the first black to become US president.

P-Noy had CAS and became the first bachelor to become PH president.

I don’t know why MVP missed that golden opportunity to hire Jaworski, who would have easily rekindled that old fire reminiscent of Meralco’s vintage trademark in the ‘70’s.

MVP’s advisers goofed on this one, the way his ghostwriters goofed and plunged him to that plagiarist boo-boo a while back?

Again, I repeat, I’m not trying to downgrade Gregorio as coach of Meralco. He’s more than very capable. He knows I am his ardent fan from way back. Ask his father. Ryan even called me to say, “You are among the very firsts to know I am accepting the job as coach of Meralco.”

I was flattered, of course.

Anyway, as we love to say, that’s all water under the bridge now.

Let’s move on and relish the thought that the PBA semifinal series in the All-Filipino Cup is just a matter of two days away.

On Wednesday, B-MEG Derby Ace faces MVP’s Talk ‘N Text, and San Miguel Beer squares off with Ginebra.

Had Meralco hurdled B-MEG Derby Ace, it would have been a similar Sister Act between TNT and Meralco as in the SMB-Ginebra best-of-seven.

Oh, well, you can’t win them all.

Not even, when your initials are MVP.

Al Mendoza, Manila Standard Today