Jerie Pingoy set to come full circle after emotional PBA Draft

Jerie Pingoy is no longer just a cautionary tale nor a name for a collegiate league rule.

In the super-stacked 2021 PBA Draft on Sunday, March 14, the former FEU, Ateneo, and Adamson stalwart got selected as the 52nd overall pick in the 5th round to the Phoenix Super LPG Fuel Masters.

Although he has yet to ink a contract, Pingoy let the emotions flow as he broke down in tears immediately after hearing his name called after a nerve-wracking two-hour wait.

And for sure, anyone who followed his career from the very beginning knows what those tears meant.

After enjoying a quick rise to the top as a two-time UAAP high school MVP with the FEU Baby Tamaraws, Pingoy expectedly got the attention of numerous suitors for college, which ultimately started his unfortunate downfall.

Eager for a new start, Pingoy chose the blue and white of the Ateneo Blue Eagles, a move that set in motion a controversial UAAP rule requiring high school transferees to sit out a whopping two years before being eligible to play in the seniors division.

Although the rule was eventually scrapped, letting today’s UAAP high schoolers jump wherever else they please for college without any redshirt years, Pingoy became the sacrificial lamb – the poster boy of the “Pingoy Rule” – that stirred legislators into action.

After two whole years of waiting, Pingoy immediately suffered another setback as he was part of the 7 infamous Ateneo players who got cut due to academic deficiencies – a cast that included current PBA key cogs CJ Perez and Arvin Tolentino.

This forced the Ateneo 7 to look for new collegiate homes, and Pingoy ultimately settled in San Marcelino with Franz Pumaren and the Adamson Soaring Falcons, which meant undergoing another redshirt year as is still required for college students.

Through a mix of reasons both within and beyond his control, the once highly-touted Pingoy only played 7 games in his first 3 years out of high school.

And by the time he finally got going, he was delegated to a timeshare behind other guards in his last two years. Just like that, Pingoy’s time in the collegiate ranks ran out.

Unwilling to give up, Pingoy next entered the PBA D-League, and latched on with the school-based CEU Scorpions.

As if fate was mocking him, the basketball world then screeched to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic before he even got any serious D-League burn to prove himself.

After all those roadblocks, Pingoy is still here, battling for his basketball dreams at the tail end of a very loaded draft. From that position, draftees who panned out are firmly considered as outliers, and definitely not the norm.

Nothing is a sure thing from this point on, but at the very least, Jerie Pingoy heard his name called in the PBA Draft, and no one can take that away from him now.

– Rappler.com