Last Tuesday night, I had the privilege of meeting up with Michael Yu, the man behind the college basketball magazine Rebound. We had a nice lively chat about hoops, mostly rumors that can’t be printed on this site. We had another reason for getting together, though; he wanted me to write about my thoughts on the magazine, and even gave me copies of the first two issues for free. I told him that I would love to do it, although I was going to be candid on this blog. I dug into the two issues, and while I was thinking about it, I realized I am eminently qualified to write a review about magazines.

First, I absolutely love magazines, sports magazines in particular. Those weekly sports magazines from the early ‘90s fed directly into my basketball addiction, from those same corner newsstands that only a few years earlier had been my source of Pilipino Funny Komiks (Force 1 Animax FTW!). I was a fan, in particular, of Scoreboard Magazine, which was funny, opinionated, irreverent, and included a weekly column about pro wrestling (two of the writers, Atty. Ed Tolentino and James Ty III are still active in the sports scene today). I stayed away from the more popular Sports Weekly, which was staid and boring. Can you guess the sports columnist who wrote majority of the stories on Sports Weekly? Yep, your old favorite, Quinito Henson.

All those publications folded up by the time I was in high school, but I did start a meager glossy magazine collection. It really wasn’t much, although for a certain stretch I didn’t miss an issue of Slam. But I was on a budget, so I got mostly back issues from Booksale of titles like Maxim (I was a huge fan of the American edition—articles like this made for great toilet reading), Spin (mostly for the Klosterman columns), Blender, Wired, and a handful of the local/regional editions of FHM and Time. I stopped buying magazines regularly though, around the time I started graduate school.

Second, my day job actually requires me to sift through hundreds of long-form features, reports, and profiles, and I’ve done a couple of them myself. I do have an appreciation for the work that goes into these things, and I have a fair idea of what works and what doesn’t.

So, how does Rebound magazine stack up?

It’s a great effort, and kudos should go to Mike and his merry band of writers: Rick Olivares, Chris Soler, Mike Abasolo, and in the second issue, Sid Ventura. They went at this project harder than Ronald Tubid chasing after a loose ball.

The first issue of the magazine got off to a rocky start, with the magazine suffering from apparent printing problems ruining all the photos. The centerpiece of the issue was the team-by-team previews for each NCAA and UAAP squad, with the writers going about a thousand words on each team. The effort was remarkable, and ultimately pointless; by the time the collegiate season rolled around, the previews were invariably dated. Did we really need to spend a magazine spread featuring the Angeles University Foundation Great Danes?

The second issue was much, much better. With the previews out of the way, there were more pages available for feature stories. Sid’s story on controversial FEU guard Mark Barroca was a keeper (high-res photos of Mark notwithstanding). Detail after detail of Mark’s life, pre-FEU, was compelling: his mother hated basketball, so he didn’t play organized ball in high school, competing instead as a distance runner; he made money as a ringer (or in his words, an “import”) in various basketball tournaments in Mindanao, just not in his native Zamboanga province, because his mom hated the game; he was cut when he tried out for his first varsity team at some no-name college in Zamboanga.

If there was a problem with the issue, it was that the features didn’t go far enough. I would have loved to know more about Barroca, or about Marvin Hayes, whom Rick wrote about in the issue as well. The Hayes feature hinted at some interesting details, but didn’t go in-depth with his compelling life story. Rick really had a chance to explore some new territory with Hayes, a second-generation Olongapo Fil-Am (his grandfather was an American serviceman) but the story ended almost abruptly.

There might be value in cutting some of the fat and fillers in the magazine, and allowing the Sid and Rick (and Chris and Mike A.) to go deeper with their stories. The writers, who work on every little feature, box, and sidebar in the magazine, might be spread too thinly; some stories have about the same enthusiasm as a high school English paper.

Perhaps the Rebound team should also explore the possibility of bringing in more writers to work with them for in-depth feature stories; I know that the budget might be limited, but there’s an allure for writers to see their work in print in a magazine. I’m sure Rebound magazine will be able to attract more writers, not necessarily just those who traditionally write about college basketball. More voices would also mean we wouldn’t be treated to the same cookie-cutter stories about Filipino basketball players; you know, the one about them working hard and overcoming the odds and putting all the hurt behind them.

I guess it all boils down to what Mike and the rest of the Rebound team wants to do. Do they want to be the Chalk magazine for college basketball (which isn’t a bad thing, really), just chugging along and churning out issues, or do they want to create something really special? Bill Simmons, in various podcasts, always argues that monthly magazines should go the other way from the Internet to make themselves truly compelling in spite of the web: great reporting, in-depth features, and powerful photography.

I always thought that Rafe Bartholomew’s feature on Rosell Ellis was the best piece of writing ever done on Philippine basketball. Ironically enough, it was done by an American (as Pinoy as Rafe is at heart). I would love to see Filipino writers do that, and I’d be thrilled if I read it on Rebound magazine.

It’s a tough act to follow, because Rafe is really good; he finished his journalism degree from Northwestern, one of the best j-schools in the world, and he is a Fulbright scholar. But more than skill, that Ellis article was also a product of ample time for development, and lots and lots of love for Filipino basketball.

I’m sure we could manage that, right?