Chery Tiggo head coach Aaron Velez proved his doubters wrong after leading the Crossovers to the first-ever professional volleyball title in the Philippines last Friday.
When asked if there's something he wants to say to his bashers, the soft-spoken Velez opted to take the high road.
"At this time of the pandemic, these challenging times, I think it's better to be kind, better to appreciate one another and be fortunate that we can do what we want to do," said Velez.
"It just made us grow as a person and as a team. Whether there's bashers or anything, what's important is I trusted my players to perform whatever rotation it is," he added.
Velez led Chery Tiggo to the Premier Volleyball League Open Conference title after a five-set victory over Creamline, 23-25, 20-25, 25-21, 25-23, 15-8 in the Game Three of the best-of-three finals.
Still, despite all the glory, he admitted that he still has a lot to learn in the game of volleyball. And Velez believes that his matchups against topflight coaches in the PVL will only make him better in the future.
"I'm just so thankful to actually compete with seasoned and high-caliber coaches. With all humility, I have a lot of things to learn and I'll just grow as a coach and I hope I can also inspire more players and more individuals," he said.
"Probably it's in the books but I think I have to push harder."
