Erik Spoelstra is the first Pinoy coach in the NBA Finals

The victory of the Miami Heat over the Chicago Bulls last Friday made history for Filipino-American coach Erik Spoelstra as the first Filipino and Asian coach in the NBA finals. Spoelstra steered the Heat to victory in the Eastern Conference Final Playoffs to set up an NBA Finals series against the Dallas Mavericks.

Sure, it wasn’t a walk in the park for Spoelstra. He spent two years as a player-coach for Tus Herten in the German professional league following his stint at the University of Portland. He joined the Miami Heat staff in 1995 as a video coordinator. Two years after, he was named assistant coach and then promoted to assistant coach/advance scout in 1999. He became the assistant coach/director of scouting in 2001. He was an assistant coach with the Miami Heat when they won the 2006 NBA Finals by defeating the Dallas Mavericks.

It was on April 2008 when Spoelstra was named successor to Basketball Hall of Fame coach Pat Riley as head coach of the Miami Heat to become the youngest head coach in the NBA.

Spoelstra is the son of Irish-Dutch-American Jon Spoelstra, who was a long-time NBA executive for the Portland Trail Blazers, Denver Nuggets, and New Jersey Nets and Elisa Celino, who was from San Pablo, Laguna in the Philippines.

With Spoelstra at the helm, I hope that the Miami Heat will win the championship this season.

The NBA Finals between the Heat and the Mavericks will start on Wednesday.