height_ft death_date nationality birth_date career_start weight_lbs years team draft_pba number draft_team_pba college name alias birth_place draft_year_pba career_end position height_in article_title
6 6 july 1981 philippines 17 april 1948 1975 185 1975 -- 1978 1978 -- 1979 1979 -- 1980 toyota toyota -lrb- head coach -rrb- -lrb- player -rrb- toyota -lrb- assistant coach -rrb- elevated 17 toyota comets university of the philippines fortunato acuña fort philippines 1975 1978 center / forward 1 fort acuña

fort acuña

fortunato `` fort '' acuña -lrb- april 17 , 1948 -- july 6 , 1981 -rrb- was a filipino professional basketball player and coach .
a 6 ' 1 '' center/forward , he played for the up fighting maroons in the uaap .
in the micaa , acuña played for the meralco reddy kilowatts until it disbanded in 1972 .
he joined the newly formed toyota comets in 1973 , along with meralco teammates alberto reynoso , orlando bauzon , robert jaworski and francis arnaiz .
he continued with the toyota team when the franchise transferred to the philippine basketball association in 1975 .
acuña retired from active play after the 1978 pba all-filipino conference and began serving as assistant coach for toyota .
on december 11 1979 , he replaced dante silverio as toyota head coach after silverio resigned when management decides to reinstate ramon fernandez , estoy estrada and abe king for game 2 of the ongoing pba invitational conference finals .
acuña steered the team to the title against arch-rivals crispa .
this was toyota 's sixth title and acuña 's only pba championship as head coach .
on december 11 , 1980 , toyota was playing against the crispa in game 3 of the 1980 pba all-filipino conference finals .
during half time , acuña was fired by team manager pablo carlos jr. for refusing to heed the latter 's request to field robert jaworski .
toyota won that game , preventing a crispa sweep of the tournament .
the redmanizers would eventually clinch the title by wrapping up the series the following game .
acuña committed suicide on july 6 , 1981 by ingesting a lethal dose of insecticide .
the next day , toyota had a scheduled game against crispa during the semi-final round of the 1981 pba open conference .
the team appeared for the game with a piece of black stripe on their jerseys as a sign of mourning .
seemingly affected by the shocking news , the super diesels lost to the redmanizers , 133-118 .
