Little has gone right for the Terrafirma Dyip this Season 49. They won a grand total of 3 games out of 33—one in each conference—and finished the season with 10 straight defeats.
But that didn’t stop 38-year-old Stanley Pringle from suiting up for the woebegone franchise and giving it his best. That was probably quite the challenge—waking up to play for a perennial loser (a “farm team” as many fans would say) after winning four PBA titles with a perennial contender. Pringle didn’t have to endure all the losing and the embarrassment of getting decimated pretty much every single game. The easy thing to do was to just bail out on the Dyip, like Christian Standhardinger did, or call it quits, which Vic Manuel did.
It turns out, Pringle isn’t one to take the easy way out. Neither is he a quitter.
The man kept playing for Terrafirma. He kept giving it his best. He honored his contract and kept scoring… and scoring… and scoring. He wasn’t as prolific as he was in his prime, but he was still a bucket getter, even at 38 and with surgically repaired knees. And in the Dyip’s penultimate outing in Season 49 against the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters, Pringle netted a milestone, becoming just the 100th player in PBA history (and 95th local) to score 5,000 points in a career.
Stanley Pringle Feted for 5,000 Points Milestone
On Sunday, in what was likely the Dyip’s final game in the PBA, Stanley Pringle was feted by the league for his scoring milestone—and it was a timely reminder that he has been one of the preeminent scorers in Asia’s first pay-for-play league since 2014, which was, ironically, the same year Terrafirma (then known as Kia Sorento) entered the PBA.
“I’m more than grateful for [the PBA] recognizing me for the 5,000-point record. You know I’m one of the older players coming into the league and dealing with all of these injuries. I didn’t think I’ll get into it,” said Pringle, who was already 27 when he got drafted by Globalport as the top overall pick in the 2014 PBA Draft.
It wasn’t the easiest of roads no doubt for the Fil-Am guard, who is a four-time PBA champion, a Best Player of the Conference winner, a former scoring champion, and the 2015 Rookie of the Year. Yet here he is now, the 95th local to crash the 5,000-point club and just the 100th player to complete the fete. And he did so by finishing the season strong—13.2 points on 47% shooting overall and 37% from downtown.
Indeed, Stanley Pringle could’ve taken the easy road and bailed out on this mess of a franchise. But he didn’t.
That alone deserves some praise.
