Let Us Play

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When Melane Talatala was a teenager growing up in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines, she was devoted to the Chicago Bulls. She tried to catch as many games as she could on TV, but it wasn’t easy. 

Michael Jordan’s slam dunks were compacted on a ’90s TV box in fuzzy resolution. The volume was faint, replaced by screeches and pounding applause that would flip-flop between households. One house cheered for the Bulls, the other for the Los Angeles Lakers. 

No time zone or barrier could separate Melane from the action — she watched on her neighbours’ TV through the windows. And when the Bulls won, Melane’s neighbours turned the TV off, avoided eye contact, gripped their curtains, and shut them tight. It happened a lot. 

“That’s how we do it in the Philippines during my time,” Tita Lane said. 

Tita is the Tagalog word for aunt. Tita Lane, which is what I call Melane, is friends with my mom. I’m not related to her, but you don’t need to be related to use it. In Filipino culture, it shows respect. Other honorifics include lolo for grandfather and ate for big sister. 

Tita Lane is the eldest daughter of 10 kids. While she grew up watching her older brothers play basketball, she never took interest.  

“They all come home like,” she said, waving her hand in front of her nose. “I don’t like the smell of the sweat.” 

It’s also tradition — girls stayed home, boys did everything else. Tita Lane said her dad was invested in his sons’ basketball endeavours. On weekdays, he drove a jeepney, which is a popular mode of public transportation in the Philippines. On weekends, he coached his sons’ basketball teams and drove them around in his jeepney. It’s common for junior basketball teams to not have coaches, and Tita Lane said whichever dad came along for the tournaments could act as the coach. 

“With the boys, [my dad was] very generous with, ‘Dad, we need new shoes,’ or something like that. With the girls, he’s generous more with, ‘Oh, you want a book then? Yeah, you can have that.’” 

While her NBA-watching era ended after the Bulls dynasty, Tita Lane still watches basketball, but now it’s in a southeastern Manitoba city called Steinbach, over 12,000 kilometres from where she grew up. 

Though Tita Lane, now 48, is not upset she never played, she gave her own daughter the opportunity she never had. 

A New Home and a New Perspective 

Mary, a high-spirited seventh grader who plays basketball at Stonybrook Middle School in Steinbach, is Tita Lane’s second-youngest of six children. While Tita Lane was used to the Filipino way of things, Mary showed an interest in basketball and challenged tradition. 

When Mary was seven, her older brother Luke asked her to rebound the ball for him. That’s when it all started. She recalls her first basketball hoop from the second-hand sale app VarageSale. 

“I kind of broke it,” Mary said with a guilty giggle. 

After years of working on her shooting form in the backyard, it was time to put her skills to the test. This year was Mary’s first official basketball season, as competitive play in schools only started in grade seven. Her coach entrusted her with the point guard role, weaving around defenders with ease and shooting threes with confidence. 

The generation gap is clear between Tita Lane and 13-year-old Mary. While Tita Lane adored Michael Jordan and the Bulls, Mary’s favourite players are LaMelo Ball, a 23-year-old guard for the Charlotte Hornets in the NBA, and Paige Bueckers, the former University of Connecticut Husky and first overall pick at this year’s WNBA Draft. Ball and Bueckers have made names for themselves because of their exceptional talent and social media platforms.  

“Hopefully I’ll make it to the WNBA soon,” Mary said. 

“I believe in you,” I told her. 

“Yeah, look at me, Mom.” Mary grinned at her mom, who was seated across their dimly-lit living room. 

While Mary doesn’t have a dream WNBA team in mind, she hopes to play for the University of Connecticut like Bueckers. Until then, she’s planning on training all summer to prepare for her eighth-grade season. 

“They can do whatever they want as long as they love what they are doing,” Tita Lane said. 

Late Bloomers 

In the same middle school back in 2018, I also wanted to play basketball, but not enough girls were interested to make a team.  

“If you play volleyball, then we’ll join basketball,” the volleyball girls told me. 

There was no other way to go about it. Only two girls in the entire grade wanted to play basketball — me, a 5-foot-2 (and three quarters) girl with an undying love for the game, and another Filipino girl, even shorter than I was. And no, I haven’t grown since. I don’t think she has either. 

Together, we were determined to at least form a starting lineup. If we were lucky, we’d have two subs. It worked. So, for a few months, I played volleyball, a sport Steinbachers adore. Steinbach Regional Secondary School’s volleyball teams dominate in their respective leagues, and the city is known to produce Olympians like Eric Loeppky and Michelle Sawatzky-Koop. It didn’t matter if I struggled with volleyball if it meant I’d have a complete basketball team during the winter. 

I moved to Steinbach in 2013. Before that, I lived in the Philippines, where people eat, sleep and breathe basketball. It’s a way of life. Even though we didn’t live there anymore, I spent summer days playing shooting games with my younger brothers Lyle and Eliel in our southeastern Manitoba driveway. We started with a glass backboard, but we played so much that it shattered. Our dad replaced it with a metal sheet which held up until the winds took it out. Sounds familiar. 

At that point, I was hooked on Toronto Raptors basketball and the legendary duo DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry. They were the face of the franchise during the 2010s and led the team to memorable seasons and playoff runs. I may have watched too many DeRozan highlights because all I have in my bag is a mid-range game. 

But there was a time when basketball wasn’t my world. I’m from the in-between of Tita Lane and Mary’s eras. Basketball wasn’t forbidden, but it wasn’t encouraged either. At age nine, I knew I wanted to play, but the disapproval from family members meant I had to make my case. It forced me to hunt for proof that women and girls can and do play. 

“But Ate Sophia plays!”  

“How come Lyle and Eliel can play, but I can’t?” 

“The WNBA literally exists.” 

None of that worked, and they gave me two reasons why I couldn’t play: Basketball is for boys, and I am a girl. I don’t blame my family for thinking that way. Just like Tita Lane, that’s what they were taught.

According to the book Playing With the Big Boys: Basketball, American Imperialism, and Subaltern Discourse in the Philippines, after Americans defeated the Spaniards in the 1898 Spanish-American War, they introduced physical education to Filipinos as a way of Americanizing them. In 1910, basketball was added to the colonial government’s newly made public school system and labelled as a women’s sport. I wish I had known this when I was a nine-year-old making my plea to play basketball. 

The sport’s popularity grew after it was officially added to interscholastic meets, which are leagues where colleges, elementary schools, and other levels of schooling compete against each other. In the province of Zambales, an American teacher said girls in their class “became very enthusiastic” about the sport and begged to practice late into the night every evening. 

Then, members of the Catholic Church hierarchies decided the game was an inappropriate activity for women. Their main argument? Women wore long, baggy pants known as bloomers — “too manly” for the members’ liking. The Philippines’ Bureau of Education suggested wearing skirts over bloomers to make it more ladylike, but that advice came too late. The “it’s too manly” opinion had already swayed the public. 

A century later, that mindset still exists — it affected Tita Lane’s childhood like it affected mine. I had to spend time convincing family members that it was okay for me to throw around an orange ball. But opportunities to play for Filipino women and girls are returning and becoming the norm in places like Steinbach.  

The OGs Who Started It All 

Basketball is woven into Filipino DNA. Even those who move across the world in search of opportunity rarely leave their love for the game behind. 

As of 2021, 1,500 Filipinos live in Steinbach. That makes up around 12 per cent of the population of 18,000. But until 15 years ago, there weren’t many opportunities in Steinbach to play basketball. Someone had to start the basketball scene from scratch. This time, it wasn’t colonialism that forced them — it was passion that fuelled them. 

In 2010, Tito (uncle in Tagalog) Rommel Gallego and a teenage Abram “Absky” Razon wanted to make their outdoor pickup games official — with referees, a scoreboard and minor officials. They and a group of friends had been playing at Stonybrook Middle School’s outdoor court for years. Tito Rommel says friends from neighbouring Brandon, Winkler, and Morris made hours-long trips to Steinbach to play on the weekends and stay overnight. When they heard about the idea of an official league, they were on board. 

Tito Rommel and his friends named it the South Eastman Filipino Basketball League, or SEMFA Basketball for short. It was named after SEMFA, an organization that welcomes Filipino immigrants to Steinbach and acts as the community hub for Filipinos living in the area. As the name suggests, it was only open to Filipinos — more specifically, Filipino men.  

“It was made because of our love for the game,” Tito Rommel said. 

The combination of players from different towns and cities made up six teams for the league’s inaugural season. Tito Rommel became the first commissioner of the league. 

To make playing more affordable, local businesses sponsored teams, which were named after them: Solomon’s Furniture, Harvest Honda, and Hylife are just a few. Some of these names, like Harvest Honda, stuck around for years. 

Tita Rosalita Gallego, Tito Rommel’s wife, recalls her husband playing in the first-ever game in October 2010 at the Steinbach Evangelical Mennonite Church. Family and friends filled seats lined up along the gym walls. Those who were late had to find room to stand. Neither of them remembers who the opponent was, but Tito Rommel does remember who won the championship. 

“Us. Right, Absky?” Tito Rommel said. 

“It’s always the people who run it who win the championship,” Absky joked. 

In 2019, SEMFA Basketball had a one-off youth tournament for Filipino boys who lived in Steinbach and its surrounding communities. I couldn’t play, so I came with my credentials and reported on the event.  

A few years before being on that byline, my dad met with a man at a Tim Horton’s booth in Winnipeg to talk insurance. The man asked my dad what his children wanted to be when we grew up.  

“The eldest wants to be a sports reporter,” my dad said. 

“But isn’t that really hard and competitive? Shouldn’t she do something else?” the man said, skeptical. 

“I’ll support whatever their dreams are,” my dad replied. 

It didn’t take long to achieve those dreams. At 13, I became a Kid Reporter for Sports Illustrated Kids — one of 10 across North America. What, like it’s hard? 

An audio recorder, notebook, and a school-issued Chromebook became my daily accessories. My first in-person interview happened in 2019 when the Canadian senior men’s national basketball team made a stop in Winnipeg. I sat at the media table on the sidelines during the game, and interviewed the Raptors’ then-head coach, Nick Nurse, in a scrum. That was the peak event of my tweenage years. Chris Bosh, Arike Ogunbowale, and Chris Paul are just some of the basketball legends I had the privilege of talking to during my five years with Sports Illustrated Kids. I was a booked and busy youngster. Even with all the big names I’ve talked to, covering local events and athletes was still a priority. The SEMFA Basketball League youth tournament is where I met Absky.   

As a girl, I wondered when women could join the SEMFA Basketball League. It didn’t feel right that titas always hollered from the bleachers. Why wasn’t it the other way around? Has it always been this way? It’s not just women — non-Filipinos asked if they could join too. However, we would have to wait over a decade for the rebrand. 

We’re Done Cheering from the Bleachers — Cheer Us On Instead 

Absky grew up playing in the SEMFA Basketball League as a teenager and into his 20s. Now 27, he is the longtime commissioner of the Prairie Basketball League, formerly SEMFA Basketball League. Over the past five years, he’s taken strides to make basketball more inclusive, especially for those who have historically been left out. 

“It’s about providing opportunity that we didn’t have growing up,” Absky said. 

The Prairie Basketball League games and events run out of school gyms in Steinbach. In the spring 2025 season, 350 players from 39 teams lace up their shoes every weekend. 

Within the Prairie Basketball League, he formed a women’s division and youth divisions for boys and girls as young as seven. The youth divisions allow players to experience proper basketball training (and fun) at a young age. Local training sessions, proper coaching, and games outside of school leagues in Steinbach were rare five years ago, especially for women and girls.  

“I always felt bad for [people] that had the potential to be big and great players, not just at college but maybe even university, but I always felt like there’s just nothing here,” he said. 

In 2023, Absky created the first-ever women’s division. Women and girls from Steinbach, including me, finally had a local option to play basketball outside of school sports. There are four teams in the women’s division with a wide range of players — some are freshmen in high school, while others haven’t played in decades. The league has united women and girls from all over southeast Manitoba who would’ve never crossed paths otherwise. 

Now a Mother, Always a Baller 

Alyzza Gudmundson and her husband Darren moved to Ste. Anne, Manitoba in 2019. It’s just a 10-minute drive from Steinbach. In the same year, their daughter Nora was born. Three years later, their son Landon arrived.  

While she and her children cheered on Darren — who plays for the Super Splash Bros in the Prairie Basketball League — Alyzza was no stranger to the game. 

Alyzza grew up in Winnipeg, and when she was little, her parents went against tradition and encouraged her and her two older brothers to play basketball. Her earliest memory of the sport was playing one-on-one against her brother, who’s six years older and much bigger than her. 

“He was just posting me up, and it was just so uncomfortable, and I was like, ‘I don’t want to be here. I don’t wanna play,’” Alyzza said. 

However, that feeling didn’t last long. Her Winnipeg elementary school offered an after-school basketball program where they taught kids the basics — shooting form, dribbling with the left and right hands, and passing. She was hesitant at first, but since her friends and nearly the entire grade were doing it, she participated too. 

“It wasn’t very serious at all,” Alyzza said, reiterating it was for fourth graders. “But after that, I was like, ‘Okay, this is kind of fun.’” 

From there, Alyzza continued playing. In seventh grade her team travelled to Kenora, Ontario for a tournament. 

My jaw dropped when she told me this. While Kenora is only a two-hour drive from Winnipeg, it was still a province over. What do you mean you travelled far for tournaments in middle school? Is that normal? Is Steinbach just not like other girls? 

After falling in love with the sport even more and realizing it could take her far, she took her talents to Vincent Massey Collegiate and played basketball there. I spoke to a referee who used to coach against Alyzza’s team, and he described her as a “high school legend.” In grade 10, she was the starting point guard, just like Mary. She led her squad to back-to-back-to-back provincial championships in grades 10, 11 and 12.  

High school legend, indeed. 

After her banner-collecting high school career, she had the option to play post-secondary basketball. It was “always on her radar,” but she focused on her education instead. She got a kinesiology degree at the University of Manitoba and continued to play competitively in the women’s division of the North American Basketball Association (NABA), a Filipino-founded organization that hosts basketball tournaments across North America. 

Every September long weekend from 2009 to 2018, Alyzza packed her bags and headed to wherever the tournament was being held. She did, however, skip one year because it happened at the same time as her debut, a Filipino tradition where young women celebrate their 18^th birthday with an extravagant party. We’re talking ballgowns, dance numbers and speeches from those closest to the celebrant. She couldn’t miss that. 

Fast forward to 2023: The Prairie Basketball League announced they would have an open women’s division. It had been almost five years since Alyzza last played. The thought of picking up a ball again didn’t cross her mind until the announcement. Even then, she thought she’d sit the season out. 

“When you’re a new mom, you don’t think about that stuff,” Alyzza said. 

With some nudging from her husband, she signed up, showed up to draft day and ended up in a team of high schoolers. 

“It was just so funny because I was like, ‘Where the heck am I even?’” Alyzza said. 

Now coming into her third season of playing in the league, she still cheers on Darren with Nora and Landon — ages five and two-and-a-half — on Sundays, but roles reverse when she’s on the court. I played with Alyzza in her second season, and Nora and Landon would often scream out “Mommy!” while she played.  

“It was nice to have something that I can identify as apart from being a mom,” Alyzza said. “I’m also a basketball player that can shoot a ball sometimes.” 

All the time, I would argue. She’s a bucket. 

The 10-Year Anniversary of My Plea 

It’s 2025, and while I still play basketball here and there, my main connection to the sport is as a digital assistant and community engagement team member for the Winnipeg Sea Bears — two roles I still can’t believe are on my resume. I get to make silly TikTok videos and design graphics for a professional basketball team. The opportunity wouldn’t be possible without the women who have mentored me throughout my career and those who gave me a shot at my dreams. They’ve heard their share of “no” too. I still tell stories, just not in a reporter way. But it’s still with the mission of advocating for women and girls in basketball and still with the same love for the game. 

If nine-year-old Ayesha knew what she’d grow up to accomplish in just a few years, she wouldn’t believe it. I convinced them to let me play. I’ve met some of my best friends and mentors because of it. I’ve even made a career out of it. I’ve proved them wrong. 

Basketball isn’t just an orange ball, a hoop, and working with four other players on the court. It’s a game Filipino women and girls have fought to take back. It’s a sport that’s opened doors. It’s a dream come true. 

So, let us play.