Regino Ylanan

Born in Bogo, Cebu, Ylanan attended at Cebu City high school and played baseball for the institution as a catcher. He continued to play the sport while studying to be a doctor at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine.[1]

Reaching his twenties, he enjoyed his first experience of high level sport in 1911 when he was named in the all-Filipino national baseball team as a center fielder.[2] Despite his early baseball success, it was in track and field that Ylanan made his impact as an athlete.

Ylanan was selected to represent the Philippines at the inaugural Far Eastern Championship Games in 1913 in the athletics competition. At the event in Manila, his throwing abilities from playing baseball translated into success in the shot put and the discus throw, events which he won with marks of 10.76 m (35 ft 3+1⁄2 in) and 28.28 m (92 ft 9+1⁄4 in), respectively. He won a third athletics gold medal in the pentathlon, making him the top performing athlete at the competition and a key figure in securing the athletics title for the Philippines. Still a student, he returned for the 1915 Games held in Shanghai and defended his shot put title with an improved throw of 10.91 m (35 ft 9+1⁄2 in). Although he didn't match the success of his first appearance, he did reach the podium for a second time in the form of a pentathlon bronze medal. The Philippines won the championship title for second time, although it was Genaro Saavedra that led the charge this time as he took four gold medals in total.[3] Ylanan competed one further time at the competition, playing as catcher for the Filipino baseball team at the 1917 Far Eastern Championship Games.

He focused on his studies thereafter and graduated as a doctor of medicine from University of the Philippines in 1918. He practised as a surgeon at the Philippine General Hospital but ultimately his interest lay in sports.[1] The national bureau of education sent him to Springfield College in Massachusetts and graduated from the American school with a degree in physical education in 1920, his thesis being "The relation of Exercise to Growth and Development". This made him the first Filipino to earn the qualification.[4] This experience quickly accelerated a career in sports administration and he was appointed as the director of physical education at the University of the Philippines that same year. He acted as head of that university department for seven years.[5] He served as the head coach for the Filipino baseball team at the 1921 and 1923 Far Eastern Championship Games;[4] the team won the title in both years.

Western sports were becoming increasingly popular during the period of American influence and the American-educated Ylanan fostered the development of such sports. In 1924 he coached David Nepomuceno, a sprinter who, at the 1924 Paris Olympics, became the first ever Filipino Olympian as the country sent a two-man delegation comprising Ylanan as the sole official and Nepomuceno as the sole athlete.[1][6] He also helped create the National Collegiate Athletic Association that year, representing the University of the Philippines among the seven founding colleges in the national sports league. The league went on to be highly influential in the development of sport in the Philippines.[7]

Ylanan headed the Filipino delegation for the 1925 Far Eastern Championship Games in Manila.[4] Around this time he began publishing written works on the subject of sport, including an early summary of running technique and form in the Philippine Education Magazine in 1926.[8] In 1927 he was promoted to the position of national athletic director and also the position of secretary-treasurer for the Philippine Amateur Athletic Federation – the country's leading sports organisation. He acted in the latter position for over twenty years. Working alongside Jorge B. Vargas, the organisation's president, his achievements during his tenure included a ten-year national plan for athletic centres to train youths and the building of the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex on the old Manila Carnival grounds as the main stadium for the 1934 Far Eastern Championship Games, which was the tenth and final edition of the competition.[4] He was the chief medic for the 1928 Olympic Philippines team and then the head of the national delegation at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where Miguel White won the country's second ever Olympic athletics medal in the hurdles.[1][9]

Regional sports competition declined shortly afterwards given the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. He remained an authority on sports in the country, in capacities as an administrator, writer and medic. He documented the continued rise of basketball in the Philippines in the 1940s,[10] as well as the development of baseball in the country on which he remarked that it "seemed to fill a long-felt want with the Filipino". [11] He worked on a book, The History and Development of Physical Education and Sports in the Philippines, but died of a heart attack in late 1963 at the age of 74 before he could complete it. His wife Carmen Wilson Ylanan finished the work and it was published in 1965, which a second edition with further additions by her following in 1974.[12]

He was given several awards posthumously, including honours from the Philippine Sports Writers Association and a YMCA Triangle Award.[4] In 1999 he was awarded the title of "Sports Leader of the Millenium" by the Philippine Sportswriters Association.[5]