By Jerome Lagunzad
Long before he became the proud owner of Zark’s Burgers, Rolandrei Viktor “Commie” Varona was a former overseas Filipino worker who worked as a cook in a popular cruise ship based in the Caribbean.
As a budding chef, he knows that he needs to have all the perfect ingredients and the right mix to come up with the winning recipe, something that he has done in terms of managing his business and his basketball team as well.
That explains why Varona, 32, could not help but be proud and thrilled at the same time to see Zark’s Burgers finally complete its transformation from a former lightweight to the newest kingpin in the PBA Developmental League.
After a forgettable debut showing in the Foundation’s Cup last year when they only have just a win to show out of 10 matches, the Jawbreakers made a complete turnaround by becoming the lowest-ranked team – as the sixth seed – in league history to go all the way for the season-opening Aspirants Cup crown last Tuesday.
“When the going gets tough, you should find a way to make an improvement,” said Varona in a phone interview yesterday. “Hindi pumasok sa isip namin mag quit despite our poor showing last year. Ako mismo competitive rin talaga tulad sa pagpapatakbo ng negosyo.”
However, Varona admitted that he cannot really turn things around for the Jawbreakers all by himself. And that’s where the entry of the Lyceum Pirates and the new management, led by team manager Bernard Yang and team coordinator Melo Navarro, came into play.
“It’s a total team effort. Pero ang pinaka-importante dyan is getting the right pieces. Kumbaga sa pagkain, sila talaga ‘yung perfect ingredients para sa masarap na luto. Nag-complement naman kaming lahat,” said Varona.
“We didn’t quit and just tried to improve and make the team better. That’s what we did so we tapped the right team manager, team coordinator and the managing staff. We find the key people who can run the team well.”
All Varona wanted was improvement. But never did he expect that this latest bunch of Jawbreakers, led by tourney MVP CJ Perez, Cameroon center Mike Nzeusseu and coach Topex Robinson, could make them the seventh squad to be crowned as champions in the league’s 14 conferences so far.
“To be honest, may higher expectations. Pero ma-improve lang ‘yung record namin from last conference, masaya na kami,” he said. “Pero dahil iba ‘yung culture na dinala ng Lyceum at ng management, nalampasan talaga nila ‘yung expectations ko.”
And they all did it in historic fashion.