FEU placards used for play calls, says Chambers

MANILA, Philippines — Perhaps, for the first time in Philippine basketball, placards were used to call for plays instead of fingers or hands.The FEU Tamaraws coaching staff did just that against the Adamson Soaring Falcons in the UAAP Season 87 men's basketball at the Smart Araneta Coliseum Sunday.Standing out the most in all those placards used by FEU under new coach Sean Chambers, a former PBA star import, was a picture of Atlanta Hawks' Trae Young.Chambers expounded on this in an interview following his team's season-opening 47-59 loss."If you watch American football, especially in college, one of the things they do is because of the sound of the crowd and the noise. We're trying to run a play for a specific player and they can't hear me so we put up a sign that they all know what that sign is," said Chambers."We have a play that's actually called Trae Young so there's a big picture of Trae Young. We have a play that's called Portland so there's the Portland Trailblazers symbol. Then everything else that we run. It's just something that will help everybody understand because my goal is when we're running the play, running the set we all know what we're doing especially when we're trying to get to a specific player."Aware that their plays could be scouted with these placards, Chambers said that the Tamaraws are going to change it up."That's the secret but we would change it up. Yeah, we're running Trae Young, we may come up with a different sign next time or we'll change the name of the player. But that's what you do, you're right, so in the States people steal the signs. It became a big deal with the University of Michigan football," shared Chambers."If you look and you know if you think about the States, especially at the college level they use multiple signs so you don't know what signs they're actually using. It's something that I think will be beneficial for a year especially if we get into the win streak and we start filling up the gym like it was yesterday."Living the dreamThe FEU-Adamson marked the very first time Chambers got to coach in the collegiate level especially in the UAAP and the 6-time PBA champ with the Alaska Aces and 1996 Governors' Cup Best Import couldn't feel more blessed."I feel extremely blessed to be in this situation to get a chance to actually live out a dream of coaching a UAAP game," said the 59-year-old, who served as Alaska consultant and still serves as Gilas Pilipinas assistant coach."I cannot be more grateful to be where I'm at in the Philippines and now I get to have my son here who's behind you guys to be here for the first time visiting the Philippines and be an absolute witness to a game here in the Philippines."