Bullets of sweat mixed with water cascaded down his seemingly autocratic face. With his aura that rains power and authority, it is without qualms why this one-man punch, as what his friends fondly call him, was appointed as the new athletics director of Southwestern University PHINMA.
Pio Gerardo Solon was the perfect candidate for the open spot at the helm of a department that has successfully carried the Cobras brand of champions.
A graduate of Bachelor of Sports Science from the College of Human Kinetics at University of the Philippines – Diliman, Solon is no stranger to the field.
He started being a competitive swimmer at a young age of six up until college and has been in the profession of sports science ever since. He also served different jobs related to athletics such as being a consultant to an Olympic program and a consulting coach to professional athletes. With the same job description, he also worked at Epic Performance and Fitness, Inc., an organization for the application of sports science in the fields of performance, fitness, health, nutrition, and rehabilitation.
As the management has “lofty goals” as what Solon describes it, he felt challenged when the position was offered to him. He also expressed how thankful he was as the management continues to give its full support to the Athletics Department.
When asked about his expectations for the department as a whole, he stated that since everyone in the school wants to have teams that we can proudly support and with the fact that the community cannot support what they cannot resonate with, we should expect our student-athletes to be more visible during service initiatives and to be more active in the community by volunteerism during his stint.
The new director already has a lot of future plans in store for his department. Being trained by a Japanese coach in his childhood, he learned discipline and hard work that he is trying to carry on up until this day. Now that he is given the chance, he would like to instill that level of discipline to the program. He is confident that with everyone’s cooperation, it will be accomplished.
Looking at his credentials, Pio Solon may exactly be what the school needs as we take on a different approach to handling student-athletes. As time goes by, we would surely see more of what this one-man punch is capable of: a new brand of leadership, a new take on discipline, and a new face at the helm of Cobras sports.
