I still can’t bear to watch an Ateneo-La Salle game.
My pulse races to an anxious roar, uneasy sweat lances my eyes and my bones liquefy to the consistency of taho.
And that’s even before the game starts.
Despite that, there are still alumni from both alma maters who will risk their health over 40 excruciatingly long minutes. They don’t mind the adrenal rush that leads to increased stress levels. They don’t mind the sudden bursts of testosterone that lead to hair loss. And they don’t mind testing the warranties on their pacemakers.
But I am not one of those people.
I have unusually high cholesterol levels, I have several unpaid credit card bills, and I am working seven jobs to pay for my wedding. I can use the additional stress like I could use an additional appendix.
Ah, forget about it.
I admit it, okay? I just don’t have the balls to watch the game.
And, as confirmed by our proctologist, my fiancée has a bigger set of balls than me when it comes to watching any Ateneo-La Salle game. She actually enjoys the prospect of potential hair loss. Whenever there’s an Ateneo-La Salle game on TV, she pulls out her moth-eaten cheerleader’s outfit from the closet, does a couple of cartwheels, and screams until she pops an artery.
Me, I like the testosterone-free way of enjoying the game. I will read the sports section the following day. And, depending on the outcome of the game, I will treat everyone to a cappuccino or I will pour piping hot coffee onto my genitals.
However, there are those who conspire to induce my hair loss and thus make me lose any endorsements for hair-care products that I have so far. Friends from both Loyola and Taft will find ways to give me a blow-by-blow account of the game via text or e-mail or cloud signals. Thus, I make it point to be unreachable during any game, like in a country where the latest technological innovation is a rotary phone. It is either that I make myself scarce or I will have to rent out a generator for a short-wave electromagnetic pulse.
Whenever there is an Ateneo-La Salle game, statistics gain GMA-like credibility when both our players start dribbling the ball. During the heat of the game, we both clutch onto our rosaries and invoke the names of our respective patron saints and pray to the good Lord to lead our teams to victory. And somewhere up there, St. Ignatius and St. La Salle are probably taking pokes at each, but unfortunately the good Lord fails to notice because he’s breaking up a round of fisticuffs between St. Benedictine and St. John Lateran. Finally, when the announcer yodels the last two minutes, quantum physics kicks in and two minutes can stretch out into an eternity. And in those two minutes, a seven-point lead can vanish as mysteriously as a dubious Comelec executive.
Whatever yogic aspirations I’ve had about detaching from my ego get flushed down the karmic toilet when my good ol’ alma mater is at stake. These are the games that divide families, that anger slash elate bookies and that postpone Senate investigations. And this is a rivalry that is as mythic as that of the Boston Red Sox versus the New York Yankees. The Spartans versus the Persians. The administration versus the truth. It is the Blue versus the Green. The Eagle versus the Archer. The discretionary budget of PLDT-Smart versus the discretionary budget of ICTSI.
And for those of us who belong to either side of the fence, getting yourself swept up into the electrically-charged atmosphere of the game is probably the purest and the most cardiac-arresting expression of school spirit that we can muster. The games are actually integral to building school spirit, along with cutting class for barkada gimmicks, cramming for exams and scrambling to pay for horrendously spiraling tuition fees. And the great thing about the game is that you don’t even have to know a thing about basketball. All you need is to do is wear a blue or green shirt, know if you are supposed to cheer “One Big Fight” or “Rektikano” and be willing to risk laryngitis.
The only thing you are required to do during the game itself, whether you are at home or in a bar or in an emergency room, is to cheer with your heart on your sleeve. Is there any other way to cheer for your team? And when team your wins, you feel your heart swell like an overpriced government contract. But when your team loses, you feel like somebody’s taken your heart, stomped on it a couple of times, run it through a meat grinder, stir-fried it in pork fat and MSG, devoured it, regurgitated it and then threw it up all over the floor.
As if this heart-wrenching procedure wasn’t good enough, rabid blue babblers and gang greenies are forced to repeat this process year in and year out. And because God would have both Ateneans and La Sallians experience life-threatening experiences as it brings us closer to Him, we repeated this heart-stopping process five freaking times over this season. At this rate, I’d rather ask my cardiologist to induce a heart attack instead of waiting for one to happen.
This year was a particularly swell-worthy season for the De La Salle Green Archers Men’s Senior Basketball Team who went from suspension to vindication. But the road to the championship was a mad scramble with the Ateneo Blue Archers. All of those games could have gone either way. I’d be careful not to gloat over this because Ateneo still has sweet-shooting “Iglesia ni Chris Tiu” (or Chris “The Master” Tiu, a familiar nickname for all those men with oil-rich producing faces) in their armory. But more than that, both our institutions have waged a fierce seesaw battle in the UAAP’s final four since 2001, and I feel like an un-lubricated fulcrum.
Sometimes winning and losing against “the other school” becomes the be-all and end-all for those of us who bleed blue or green.
We couldn’t care less about coup rumblings or bribery scandals or who gets nominated for eviction from Pinoy Big Brother Celebrity Edition. But what we do care passionately about is the chance to relish sweet victory. And the pissing points that go with it.
It seems that every time our players step into the courts during an Ateneo-La Salle game, they become more than human. They transform into archetypes of our pride in our respective institutions.
I remember many an Archer who has been responsible for my pride and my progressive hair loss since 1991 — from Dickie Bachman to Jun Limpot to Noli Locsin to Tony Boy Espinosa to Jason Webb to Dwight and Elmer Lago to Dino Aldeguer to Don Carlos Allado to Mark Telan to Renren Ritualo to Mike Cortez to BJ Manalo to Mark Cardona to Joseph Yeo to TY Tang to Rico Maierhofer. But just as much as I remember these Archers, I fondly remember the Eagles who gave me many a heartache — from Olsen Racela to Richie Ticzon to Vince Hizon to Gabby Cui to Sandy Arespacochaga to John Verayo to Rainier Sison to Rich Alvarez to Enrico Villanueva to Wesley Gonzales to Larry Fonacier to Macky Escalona to LA Tenorio to JC Intal to Doug Kramer to Japeth Aguilar to Chris Tiu.
And it is when our players are shooting it out for mythic glory on the hard court that our reactions turn so visceral that we often lose sense of ourselves. I mean, did those invectives really spew forth from my mouth? Did my fingers really involuntarily curl up into that gesture? Did I really expose my tattooed derriere with the logo of “the other school” on national television?
But hey, it happens to all of us. Except for maybe the exposed derriere. But that’s because we’re only human. And being human means that sometimes the pride that fuels our rivalry gets the better of us.
Today, they are our siblings, our spouses, our friends, our officemates, our badminton partners and our three female readers. But come game time they are moving targets that deserve our contempt when “their side” wins and who deserve our insults when “their side” loses. The gloating and the name-calling. The grandstanding and the mudslinging. The one-upmanship and the grumbling. These are great attributes for one to display in Congress. But these behaviors are a disservice to those of us who have been “ruined” by our Jesuit or Christian Brother education.
We can’t assume that just because some of us are thick-skinned enough to take some “good-natured” ribbing that it grants us the wherewithal to dish it out as well. There are some who can take a couple of nasty putdowns, there are some who can stomach the occasional derogatory remark. And there are some who will want to rip apart your intestines to see if you really do bleed blue or green. I’m sure that there are those of us who do bleed blue or green, but if we stab each other enough we’ll both end up slumped in a pool of red.
But what’s even more stab-worthy is when we reduce “the other school” to negative stereotypes just so that we can keep our ranking in the pedestal of pissing points. In truth, neither school can claim a monopoly on being home to the smartest, the most academically gifted, the most successful, the most generous, and the most humble. Nor can either school claim a monopoly on being home to the most mayabang, the most snooty, the most boleros, the most number of poor spelers (oops, I mean spellers) and the most pro-administration congressmen (although we can do a head count for this one). Instead of “vilifying” each other, let us vilify those who deserve it: the cowardly perpetrators of the explosions at Glorietta, Makati, or the shameless masterminds behind the suhulan in Malacañang, or the DOMs who expose too much man-cleavage.
Our misplaced sense of school pride often gets in the way of appreciating how much we are alike — more than we expect. Br. Mark Lopez, SJ from the Loyola House of Studies, spent his formative years at La Salle Greenhills but then jumped over the bakod to pursue Management Engineering at Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU). He ended up as the executive director of the Jesuit Volunteers Program before being spirited away by the Jesuits. “I would like to think that most Jesuits see or appreciate the Ateneo-La Salle rivalry in the context of healthy competition, and school spirit. At the very least it makes for amusing banter at mealtime or recreation conversations (with La Sallian-Jesuits getting flack from the Ateneans, or vice-versa after the championships). Interestingly, among the La Sallian-Jesuits, none are ashamed of their greener roots. In fact, many of us are proud (in a good way) and will be in their greenest outfits before (or especially after a La Salle-Ateneo game).” Br. Mark shared with much amusement, but declined to share if the color of the blood shed after those recreational conversations was blue or green.
“More than the games, though, the interesting and more edifying areas of intersection between these schools are less known to the general public.” Br. Mark added. “And I think these are the areas of spirituality and mission. The chaplain and spiritual director of the La Salle Brothers in the Philippines is actually a Jesuit. He directs them in their retreats and presides over special Masses and is happy to help with other forms of spiritual guidance. There was also a time when the novitiate stage of formation for the La Salle brothers was also in the Sacred Heart Jesuit Novitiate in Novaliches (so Jesuit novices and La Salle Brother-novices were actually housed in the same compound for some time).”
Br. Ricky Laguda, FSC is the president of De La Salle Araneta University in Malabon. After spending his grade and high school years in the University of St. La Salle Bacolod, Br. Ricky switched sides to pursue philosophy at ADMU. “Looking deeply at the lives of both our founders, they are essentially the same,” Br. Ricky shared. “Both were good at doing what they felt was God’s call. Both were students and advocates of the Counter Reformation. And both were excellent ‘patron saints.’” St. Ignatius was a Patron Saint of Retreats and Retreatants. St La Salle was Patron Saint of Teachers. Both had a great love for God, the Church, and the world. In fact, if you visit St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, you will find them ‘next to each other.’ The statue of St. La Salle’s is actually looking down at the statue of St. Ignatius.” (But let us save this discussion for next season’s championships. — RJ)
“In the end, we may not readily admit it, but the Jesuits and De La Salle Brothers, La Salle and Ateneo, aren’t really too different from each other,” chimed in Br. Ariane Lopez, FSC, an alumnus of De La Salle Zobel who pursued Social Studies in ADMU. He is currently involved in vocation development while pursuing his master’s degree in Theological Studies at ADMU. “We say with different words the same things… We strive to follow Christ to make Him more present in this world. We both strive to form men and women for others in whose hearts Jesus lives forever.”
In each game that we play arrow and claw to win, let us not only celebrate the pride that comes with school spirit, but the achievement that comes with it as well. The next time we see our players on the court, let us not only see them merely as the archetypes of our pride but as the archetypes of our achievement: as a basketball team, as a school, as an institution, as a community. Our achievements, both on and off the court, help us define each other. And at the core of this definition is the admiration and respect that we hold for one another. After all, aren’t we each other’s opposite number? What would Ateneo be without La Salle and La Salle without Ateneo? When our mythic rivalry remains steadfast to these principles, then we remain humble in victory as we are magnanimous in defeat. But when neither of us are able to exercise humility or magnanimity, then neither of us are truly worthy to be called victors.
It is this admiration and respect for both the Jesuits and Christian Brothers that has so artfully melded in the person of Tyrone Tang, a product of the Jesuit-run Xavier School, who found the fortitude and determination to propel a disheartened senior’s basketball team to the championships. It was this admiration and respect that prompted University of the East coach Derek Pumaren to comment, after DLSU won over UE in this season’s finals, “Ateneo brought out the best in La Salle.” And it was this admiration and respect that made the La Salle bleachers go ballistic with cheers of “Go Ateneo!” when Chris Tiu was presented as part the Mythical Five for this UAAP basketball season. It is when we celebrate the achievement of the human spirit — be it blue or green in color — that we discover that we are all Ateneans. And that we are all La Sallians.
There has been some recent debate among diehard La Salle fans that the Animo cheer belongs to our school. Actually, I think that the “Animo” cheer is one that is shared by both schools. Animo in Latin means “courageous, ardent, passionate and furious.” And Animo in Latin also means “spirit.” Is there any other way you can describe an Ateneo-La Salle game? Our Animo fills the seats of Araneta Coliseum like no Sharon Cuneta concert can.
Next season, I finally hope to watch an Ateneo-La Salle game. Live, even. In the meantime, I’ll have the chance to grow a big enough set of balls.
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For comments, suggestions or if you have front-row tickets to next year’s first Ateneo-La Salle game, please text PM POGI <text message> to 2948 for Globe, Smart and Sun subscribers. Or e-mailledesma.rj@gmail.com.