The Final Score: Profile of my MVP - A Mother's Day Column

I’ve seen that look before. It’s the eyes of a human set to do a superhuman feat. I’ve seen that same fire in the eyes of Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Ten seconds left, down by one, the ball is in their hands and crowd is on its feet. Fueled by a passion so visceral, she even sweats like a prime-time player. Under bright lights, cameras documenting her every move, she makes one final goal-line push against the on-coming blitz. She pauses for a split-second, feels my anxiety and looks at me as if to say, “Trust me I know what I’m doing, just get out of my way and we’ll win the game." She grunts like Sharapova, scowls like Kobe and clenches her fist like Tiger. At the moment of truth, she closes her eyes and dives head-first into the end-zone. Game winner at the buzzer. After the hysteria, we hear a calming voice; “Pia, Mico, here’s your baby girl," our doctor says while he carefully hands over our little Mickey into a first-time mother’s arms. After years of covering basketball games, I can separate athletes who simply play from athletes who play to win.

Some of the professionals you see on television survive by coasting along. Players who play to win, on the other hand, inspire us to overachieve. By definition, therefore, my wife is a winner. In that delivery room four years ago, she used every skill she learned from reading all those “What to Expect" books, utilized every breathing trick she picked up from all the Sunday morning Lamaze sessions and scored a nerve-rattling jumper for the championship. Don’t get me wrong. Marriage and parenting are built on teamwork. Ours won’t succeed if I just let my wife take all the shots and do all the work. Kobe wouldn’t get his most recent championship without Odom and Fisher. It’s all a matter of recognizing our roles. In our case, I see my wife as a player who makes everyone around her better, displays great composure amidst adversity and owns incredible resolve. How she manages to balance her time between her husband and daughter with her duties as GMA-7 News Anchor and Field Reporter is often beyond comprehension. It’s as hard to explain as a nifty no-look bullet-pass through four defenders during a crucial play. But she makes it work and makes it work well. That’s how winners inspire. That’s how winners succeed. As such, when it comes to our marriage and parenting team-up, she’s Magic and I’m Kareem. She’s Jordan and I’m Pippen. She’s Kobe and I’m Gasol. Sometime last year, our daughter caught a nasty cold and developed a slight fever. In light of the H1N1 threat, we could’ve easily plunged into paranoia. My wife, the franchise player that she is, played it cool. That’s how you take care of the ball. I apologize if my sports analogies prove too much to digest. I figured the best way to describe how much my wife means to me and my daughter is to use the language I’m comfortable with – characterizing MVP qualities of champion athletes. My wife reveals the extent of human ability – the ability to understand, care and love – with the flair of Ali and the ferocity of Pacquiao on a daily basis. I’ve seen how great athletes transcend regular humanity by striving to be superhuman. The great ones embrace the reciprocity of nature. To borrow a line from a Rudyard Kipling poem; a wolf gets its strength from the pack and the pack gets its strength from the wolf. I get my strength from my wife. My family gets its strength from my wife. She inspires and emboldens us to provide her with the same. At season’s end, we always choose a player of players. The statistics have been computed. The votes are all in. It’s unanimous. She’s my Queen. She’s our Star. She’s our MVP. -- Mico Halili, GMANews.TV Editor's Note: Sports analyst Mico Halili is married to GMA-7 journalist and newscaster Pia Arcangel. Pia is co-anchor of QTV's noontime newscast Balitanghali with Raffy Tima and GMA's 24 Oras Weekend Edition with Jiggy Manicad. She also hosted Art Angel, a weekly children's show on GMA Network.