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[nastrans]

The Gokongwei franchise was one of the original members of the league in 1975 and it stayed until 1992 when Sta Lucia bought the team. Among the stars that played on this team were Ricardo Brown, Atoy Co, Abe King, Arnie Tuadles, and Allan Caidic with Baby Dalupan as coach during the late 80's.

Hopefully, magshare din kayo lalo na ung mga veteran PBA fans.

[Jay P. Mercado]

The company was then known as the Consolidated Foods Corporation (CFC) and their chief products included well known brands like Presto Ice Cream, N-Rich Coffee Cream, Jack & Jill Fun Snacks, Great Taste Coffee among others. This was perhaps one of the biggest food corporations back in the 70's and is still considered one of the biggest today with Universal Robina Corporation (URC) as well as in other diversified industries like Robinson's Land Corporation (RLC) (realty) and Sun Cellular (telecommunications). They were known for their different tag names; the Coffeemakers, the Coffee Creamers, the Discoverers, the Ice Cream Makers, the Tivolis, etc.

While Great Taste was known to be a blockbuster and powerhouse team to those who got to watch the game in the early 80's, this team was also one of the ragtag and also-ran teams of the 70's. Not exactly blessed with the biggest names among the present set of players then, they did become competitive owing more on the sheer hearts of their players rather than talents. Notable players who donned the Presto / Great Taste jersey in the 70's included the Guzman brothers Noel and Joel, Manny Paner, Florendo Ritualo (the father of Ren-Ren), Danny Pribhdas (the father of Danilo, Jr of the UST Growling Tigers), Roy Deles, among others. Imports who shared the limelight with the Presto locals during the 70's included Dana Lewis, Niño Samuel, Jim Hearns, Daryl Smith, Jim Collins, Cisco Oliver (returned in 1978) and Lew Brown. Coaches included Tony Genato (Quinito Henson's father in law), Chino Marquinez (who also acted as team manager) and Nilo Verona.

The real big turnaround started when they were able to secure the services of then Fil-Am rookie Ricardo Brown. It was encapsulated in a thread written by Pauly in the old forum that Brown was practically stolen by Great Taste team manager Ignacio Gotao from Danny Floro, who has already formalized a commitment from the Quick Brown Fox to play for the Redmanizers. But as fate would have it, Brown was secured for the Coffeemakers, along with Bogs Adornado who was pried away from the U/Tex Wranglers, Manny Victorino (then considered one of 3 elite centers in the league, alongside Ramon Fernandez and Abet Guidaben), Joel Banal, Jimmy Manansala, Joy Carpio, Rafael "Cho' Sison (the 1981 ROY Awardee), and import Norman Black. Of course, the real sweetener was the entry of Coach Baby Dalupan for the team - first as team consultant behind his godson Jimmy Mariano, only to secure the top coaching job when Mariano was "fired" for his ill-advised statement "we didn't intend to win.” This was said after a shocking loss to lowly Galerie Dominique since Presto was already secured of a slot in the next round.

Now a powerful and potent squad, Great Taste became the toast of the PBA, dominating the mid-80's with a strong local lineup coupled by even more potent imports in the likes of Joe Binion, Jeff Collins, and Michael Young. The team even became stronger when the likes of Philip Cezar, Atoy Co, Arnie Tuadles and Abe King joined the Coffeemakers. Add to this the blue chip rookie in the draft in the name of Allan Caidic and this became the team to beat. They were deemed as the second arrival of the disbanded Redmanizers at that time, with such a talent-laden squad to consider, plus a championship coach to boast of.

Presto won its final championship in 1990 featuring the superstar veterans, Caidic and rookies Gerald Esplana (named ROY for that year) and Apet Jao (the top draft pick). More blue chip players came their way including Vergel Meneses in 1992 and Bong Hawkins until they eventually disbanded at the end of the 1992 season with Sta. Lucia buying the franchise rights including its rights for the first pick of the 1993 draft. It was Jun Limpot who eventually ended up to be the top pick of the said year.

[Kid Rock]

[Percival O. Flores]

Let's keep it rolling Guys! Make this the Jurassic section of MyPBA Forums!

By the time Presto/Tivoli/Great Taste disbanded in 1992, it had won 6 championships:

1984 - All Filipino 2 vs. Beer Hausen
- Invitational vs. Crispa
1985 - Open vs. Magnolia Ice Cream
- All-Filipino vs. Shell
1987 - All-Filipino vs. Hills Bros.
1990 - All Filipino vs. Purefoods

The first five championships were won with Baby Dalupan as coach. The last one was with Jimmy Mariano as their coach.

Great Taste has the dubious distinction of having won four straight championships but with no Grand Slam to show for those championships. This was because they won the last two conferences of the 1984 season, and the first two conferences of the 1985 season. Thus, in that run, they were not able to win all three championships contested in those two seasons, hence no Grand Slam.

[Percival O. Flores]

Identical Twins in the PBA:

Great Taste also has the distinction of having played identical twin brothers in the PBA.

In the 1975 season, twin brothers Jose ("Jing") Aldanese and Manuel ("Noli") Aldanese played together, very much like the Van Arsdale twins of the NBA, Dick and Tom. who played for the Phoenix Suns together in the 1975-76 NBA season. So at that time, two pair of twins were playing in the PBA and the NBA, the Aldaneses (PBA) and the Van Arsdales (NBA).

Jing however retired after that season to become the team's coach piloting Presto to a lowly 3-29 record in 1976, the worst for that year. They did not even field an import in the import-laden Open Conference that year. Noli stayed on but was out of the team after Jing's one year as the team's head coach. The last time I heard was that Jing Aldanese had recently retired as Manager of the Meralco Sports Complex in Ortigas, Pasig City.

In the early 80's, Noel Guzman, one-half of the famous Guzman twins of the San Beda Red Lions, played for Great Taste in the 1982 and 1983 seasons. On the other hand twin-brother Joel played for Galerie Domnique in 1983.

In the NBA, I know of only a pair of identical twins of recent vintage are Horace Grant and Harvey Grant. Are there more?

Sorry for my interest in identical twins. This is because I am one half of a pair of identical twins myself.

[nastrans]

Back in 87, 88 or 89 may usapan ata ang Great Taste and San Miguel regarding Ricardo Brown na after the season e he will be shipped to SMB.

[Percival O. Flores]

Ricardo Brown did transfer to San Miguel in 1988 and played the entire season with that team, fortifying what was already formidable team. Therewas no trade between San Miguel and Presto. Maybe Presto was confident that with the maturing of 1987 Rookie of the Year Allan Caidic, it can more than compensate for the loss of Brown.

Brown ended as First team guard in 1988 together with Hector Calma, Abet Guidaben, Ramon Fernandez and Caidic.

Due to heart ailment, Brown however did not play in the 1989 Open and All Filipino Conferences though. He returned to see sporadic actionin the 1989 Reinforced Conference and retired soon thereafter,

[nastrans]

Yup, it's too sad that he played seven years in the league but we can't blame health problems, it just happens. I think during the 80's probably the people identified the Coffeemakers through The Quick Brown Fox.

[Jay P. Mercado]

Here's what I gather about Ricardo Brown...(of course, if my buddy Pauly is around, he would probably be in a better position to explain)

Ricardo Brown transferred to San Miguel in 1988 without being involved in any player trade. For what I know, the form of compensation was purely monetary, with San Miguel picking up the tab "paying off" Great Taste for his services. At that time, Brown, the 1985 MVP, was already quite expensive and the Gokongwei franchise could not anymore pay for his salary, what with escalating costs brought about by the entry of former Crispa superstars Co and Cezar, former Toyotans Abe King and Arnie Tuadles and their main man Allan Caidic (Caidic eventually won the 1990 MVP crown with Presto before transferring to...yup, San Miguel).

For what I know, Brown had a slight falling out with the Cojuangcos after his stint with the first NCC team in 1981. One probable reason was he immediately turned pro in 1983 when he was supposed to have been part of the 2nd NCC team. Since the Sorianos were already running the San Miguel conglomerate after the first EDSA revolution all the way till 1994 or 1995 (when Cojuangco re-established ownership), Brown was still able to play for the Beermen and, as mentioned by Percy, eventually retired from the sport and went back to California where he now is a physical education teacher in a girls school.

I've always believed that the Quick Brown Fox is arguably the only local player I know that could never ever be guarded by his colleagues and that's saying a lot since we also had a Fernandez, Jaworski, Caidic, Lim (Samboy and Eng Beng) who can be considered as simply undefendables. But Brown was special as not even imports his size could match up against him. There was a time when Crispa Coach Tommy Manotoc somehow managed to contain him, utilizing Arturo "Bay" Cristobal to guard him like a leech. But that was probably the only time when we heard that Brown was being "contained" and after that, especially during his superlative 1985 MVP stint, he was on a mission and proved to all and sundry that he belongs to the PBA elite. To my mind, he belongs to the top all time 5 players of the league per position - alongside PF Fernandez, OG Jaworski, SF Adornado and C Benjie Paras. He was indeed a player that played way beyond his time.

[Chauvi_pig]

Jay, I wonder whatever happened to that Nimrod named Pauly. What a Prick that one.