Charlie Borck

Born to a German father and a Spanish mother, Charles “Charlie” Borck was nicknamed “The Blonde Bombshell” and played center for the San Beda College Red Lions men’s basketball team (which won the championship of the National Collegiate Athletic Association consecutively in 1934-36 and the National Open Championship in 1936) and the national team of the Philippines at the 1936 Summer Olympics where, at 1.85 m, he was the tallest member of the team. In 1941, the year before the country was occupied, the Philippines with Charlie Borck participated in the Japan-sponsored Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere Games. He was also, for a time, a member of the Philippine National Soccer Team.

Borck continued to play basketball internationally for his country until his retirement in 1949, when he moved to the United States and worked as a brewer with Anheiser-Busch. When he died in February 2008, he was the last surviving member of his country’s 1936 Olympic team. He was inducted into the Philippine National Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999 alongside his Olympic teammates Jacinto Cruz, Primitivo Martínez and Ambrosio Padilla and his college named him “Bedan of the Century” in 2001.