Even though main man Veejay Pre announced his departure from FEU, his coach has nothing but kind words for him.
For FEU Tamaraws coach Sean Chambers, he will always treat Veejay Pre as one of his kids.
A day after Pre, the UAAP Season 87 men’s basketball Rookie of the Year who was supposed to be the cornerstone of the Tamaraws’ rebuilding program, penned a heartfelt goodbye post on social media to his FEU family, Chambers said he had nothing but love for his former player.
“We all love Veejay, Veejay loves us,” Chambers said moments after the Tamaraws’ 74-57 win over the UE Red Warriors in the FilOil EcoOil 18th Preseason Cup. “He sent me a text message. He said, Coach, I L-U-U-U-U-U-U-U… I think that means a lot. ‘Love you so much.’’
Pre was recently in the news after reports surfaced that he was being aggressively recruited by rival programs. When quizzed about it by the media during a UAAP esports event, FEU athletic director Mark Molina said Pre had told him he wants to stay with FEU, his school since 2022, but that his family was pressuring him to leave.
But now that Pre has officially left FEU, Chambers is urging everyone to move on while also noting that the kid was put in an impossible situation.
“It’s a very unique situation,” Chambers said. “He’s a kid. As adults, we need to stop talking about it and let it go its way. Because a lot of adults are making a decision for a kid and he’s stuck in the middle. I think this is the first time ever I’ve seen a situation where a kid loves his university, he loves his teammates, he loves his school, he loves his coach and his coaching staff.
“But he has to make a decision for the best of the family. And I’m one of those who believe that as families, we always have to make the decisions that we think we need to do So it may not all align together, but at the end of the day, you have a kid stuck in the middle. And that’s heartbreaking.
“So we all need to move on for the betterment of Veejay. I’m not going to point fingers at who or whatever.”
Valuing integrity
As a PBA import in the 1990s, Chambers played for Fred Uytengsu, owner of the Alaska franchise. And if there’s one thing he learned from his time with the organization, it’s that integrity stood above everything else. Chambers can’t help but see the similarities between his PBA team and the team he now coaches.
“I will say this, and you can quote this,” he said. “One of the things that I’m learning more and more here is how much I appreciate Mr. Uytengsu from Alaska. And I’m so happy that the Montinola family and FEU are in line with the way they did things. And what I mean by that is we achieved success with integrity. And that’s why I’m so happy I’m at a university that wants us to always work with a level of integrity in everything we do.
“So I’m grateful that my experience in the Philippines has been with Mr. Uytengsu and now the Montinola family because we want to do things right and we want to do things right for everybody involved including our competitors, the people we play against. And also representing Gilas, the national team. There’s also a level of Integrity you have to work with when you’re working with the national team because you’re representing the whole country.”
Still, Sean Chambers can’t help but feel for Veejay Pre and what he has had to go through.
“Again, God bless Veejay. He sent me an amazing message. I love that kid like he’s my own son. But at the end of the day, I will never tell a family what not to do with their own kid, ever. And it’s unfortunate. I’ve seen the UAAP since 1987. I’ve never seen a situation like this, where it was a kid that was torn between the love of his school and what to do right by the family. But I wish them all the best, I really do.”
And make no mistake, losing a player like Veejay Pre is a big blow to FEU’s Season 88 campaign. But Chambers is confident that his team’s “next man up” mentality will keep them afloat. Their convincing win over the Warriors is a good start, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.
“Like I told Luke (Felipe) and Aaron (Bagunu) and (Miguel) Ona, they’re next man up,” Chambers said.” And trust me, they want to play. There’s a lot of guys on the bench who didn’t play today that want to play. So here’s your chance to earn your minutes.
“And no doubt about it, we felt like with Veejay we returned 90% of our offense from last year. We feel like we could have beat any team in this league. We had a chance to win a championship. And I still believe that way. We’ll just figure out a different way to go about it.”
Banner images from UAAP Media Bureau.