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MANILA, Philippines — Kansas’ Fil-Am assistant coach Kurtis Townsend has realized a lot in his nearly three many years in teaching.
However some of the essential truths that Townsend was in a position to choose up was not on the basketball courtroom, quite as he mingled with the Filipino facet of his household.
Forward of Townsend’s newest journey to the US NCAA Remaining 4 with the Kansas Jayhawks, he spoke in regards to the significance of his Filipino heritage in shaping himself as he grew older.
“You already know, I truly really feel dangerous for the individuals that do not have that form of relationship,” he mentioned of his Filipino heritage.
“Once I was younger, I did not understand what love was till I acquired round my mother’s facet of the household and everyone simply liked one another and pulled for one another,” he added.
Townsend, the brother of the first-ever Fil-Am within the NBA Raymond Townsend, traces his roots to Batangas as his maternal grandmother was born and raised there.
Whereas 1000’s of miles away now from the Philippines, the 64-year-old says his household nonetheless had that very same heat, Filipino feeling.
“Now, right here we’re in our 60s, 50s, and 40s, and my nieces, and my cousin’s children, [they] all pull for me,” Townsend mentioned.
“I get messages after video games and it makes my coronary heart full that I grew up in a Filipino household that had a lot love round it,” he continued.
Having encountered challenges alongside along with his victories in his prolonged teaching profession, Townsend mentioned it was a aid to have somebody like household to lean on.
“I’d say that was the one factor my mother and her mother actually instilled in us all, how essential household is and that there was nothing extra essential than that. You already know, when it got here to life, that is who you are gonna have in your nook and actually that is the way it’s been for me,” he mentioned.
“I am simply actually fortunate to have been born into the household that I used to be born into.”
Subsequent on the plate for Townsend and his Jayhawks, who coincidentally have one Fil-Am participant of their roster in Remy Martin, are the Villanova Wildcats on Saturday (Sunday in Manila) as they try to make a return to the US NCAA Championship Recreation for the primary time since 2012.
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