MPBL renames best coach award in honor of late Ato Badolato

THE Chooks-to-Go Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (Chooks-MBPL) will pay tribute to the lasting memory of champion head coach Edmundo “Ato” Badolato by naming the Coach of the Year award after him.

The “Ato Badolato Coach of the Year” award will be given to the head coach of the champion team of the season or tournament. The finals of the 2021 Chooks-to-Go MPBL Invitational Tournament powered by TM will be on Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021 at 10 p.m. at SM Mall of Asia Arena.

Badolato—a many-time champion coach of the San Beda Red Cubs—passed away last Sunday, Dec. 19, due to heart failure at the age of 74.

For Chooks-to-Go sports and marketing director Mel Macasaquit, he would not have been in sports if not for Badolato.

“He instilled the passion to help sports and produce quality basketball in me during my time in San Beda,” said Macasaquit, a former Red Cub and Red Lion.

“Coach Ato was the one who discovered me when I was playing for the under-13 team in a tournament in Las Vegas a couple of decades ago. Of course, I accepted his invitation to join San Beda, eventually playing for the Team B of the school,” he continued.

“We hope that through this award, the next generation of Filipino basketball players will get to know who Coach Ato was.”

Besides Macasaquit, the majority of the coaches and players in the MPBL are either products of Badolato or have faced him in one way or the other. / JNP