The Blue Eagle Season That Was…

I give the floor to fel­low Ate­nean Rick Oli­varez for his thoughts on the Blue Eagle sea­son that ended the other day. Mr. Oli­varez gave us bul­letins after every Ate­neo game last sea­son. This was taken from the Ate­neo Website.

It’s dur­ing heart­break­ers like what we had the other day that our school song is proved true:

“Win, or Lose, it’s the school we choose.”

Yes Lei, God for­got to wear blue last Mon­day. Or prob­a­bly He was too busy keep­ing the rains out. As Doug Kramer said, “God must have other plans for us… and I respect that.”

Funny how we can wax the­o­log­i­cal about bas­ket­ball games.

Oh well, at least we’ll have La Salle back next sea­son. ;-)

Final Blue Eagles Bul­letin
Ric Oli­varez

Remem­ber how those bright Blue Eagles flew…

There was Chris Tiu… not only back after a year’s hia­tus, but show­ing why he was the sub­ject of an intense recruit­ing war and nail­ing clutch shot after clutch shot like he did with Adam­son twice over.

There was Macky Escalona who in the last two years run­ning showed that he didn’t merely caddy to any quar­ter­back. In his finest per­for­mance yet, odd jump shoot­ing form and all, he showed that he is and now will for­ever more be a player to be reck­oned with. He carved up 28 big points in a los­ing cause (join­ing for­mer back­court mate LA Tenorio’s 33-point bomb in Game 3 of the 2001 Finals) in one of the most stir­ring finals per­for­mances ever by an Ate­neo guard.

There was Doug Kramer, unchained and unbound finally claim­ing the shaded lane as his pound, for­ever etch­ing his name to Ate­neo bas­ket­ball lore with his Game 1 win­ner. As I said in my finals pre­view: the key for Ate­neo to clinch the crown wasn’t on JC or Macky, but Doug. He was the team’s rock and the redeemer who bat­tled taller foes in the paint where the bat­tle for hoops supremacy is won. This year, Big Doug reminded me of Eric Reyes’ final play­ing year in 1990 when he was Ateneo’s sole slot­man bat­tling DLSU’s Jun Limpot, FEU’s Vic Pablo, UE’s Jolly Esco­bar, Adamson’s Joey Valdez, and UST’s Den­nis Espino in a Her­culean task. With­out much rebound­ing relief, Doug Kramer more than gave it his best.

There was JC Intal the player who launched thou­sands of youtube hits this year includ­ing those sen­sa­tional pos­ter­i­za­tions of Vee­jay Serios and Dylan Ababou. He emerged as a leader in more ways than one and flashed season-long bril­liance that is arguably one of the best by a Blue Eagle in any era ever. He’s come along way as a flashy slam dunk­ing frosh to a depend­able all-around player who can zap foes in more ways than one.

There was that demo­li­tion derby of the UST Tigers in the first round and the decon­struc­tion of a highly-fancied UE team. And there were the three heart-stopping wins over the resur­gent Adam­son Fal­cons that will for­ever be etched into UAAP lore.

There was the team and the coach­ing staff that faced adver­sity all year round begin­ning with the loss of two cogs who could have helped win a title for Big Blue. There was the Blue Bab­ble Bat­tal­ion and you and me cheer­ing on in a sea­son that was almost beyond belief. It was a series of one improb­a­ble win after another towards and inex­orable march to the Promised Land. Only it wasn’t quite the happy end­ing we would have all wanted.

Long after the teams had retreated to their locker rooms after the Eagles fell 76–74 in Game 3, I sat on my chair in the Upper A sec­tion fight­ing back the tears. There was hardly any­one left save for the Blue Bab­ble Bat­tal­ion up in the rafters in one final hud­dle. UST sup­port­ers descended upon the near empty Ate­neo side scav­eng­ing for sou­venirs – a plac­ard that pro­claimed the Blue Eagles 2006 Cham­pi­ons, blue-colored bal­loons, and stream­ers left behind by dazed Ate­neans – and tak­ing pic­tures on their cam­era phones.

I was in Ate­neo at the time the juniors teams were rack­ing up titles for break­fast and how my batch team won back-to-back seniors titles in the 80’s. Almost all through my high school and col­lege days, it seemed that all the Ate­neo had known was win­ning. In the NCAA, we were in the fight almost year and out. In fact, it took Letran years to over­come our haul of 14 crowns in the grand old league. Whilst in con­ver­sa­tion with Fr. Ray­mond Holscher S.J. a year ago, he opined that he thought that we were in for the fight for our lives when we trans­ferred to the much more dif­fi­cult and tougher UAAP. And he’s been proven right as we’ve squeezed three titles in six finals appearances.

While I watched the Dark Ages of the 90s excru­ci­at­ingly drag on, I stayed in the stands cheer­ing, heck­ling, and stew­ing. The years since Joe Lipa came on board are a dis­tant mem­ory now. They were fleet­ing, fun, and heart­break­ing. We won and we lost again. We saw our teams rise and fall. Through­out the game, my mind raced search­ing for signs and feel­ings of déjà vu where I might put my Saints’ faith: how the teams that won the white col­ored jer­seys won (except in Game 3), how 80% of the teams that win Game 1 bag the tro­phy (not!), how on the Feast of the Guardian Angels it was a sign that we were not going to lose, and how we have for the most part won the close games.

Yet in the end, it was the per­fect sym­me­try of UST with their “Re-live ’96 in Sea­son ’69” (as opposed to our for­mer rival San Beda’s “End 28 at ’82”) that was the slo­gan of the year. And worse, at the end of the day, I was cru­elly reminded that the only cer­tain things in life are death and taxes.

Year of the Come­back and the Coach

It was a most mar­velous and excit­ing sea­son – fit­ting after the sour taste that Sea­son 68’s tailend left the league in. More than any­thing, it was both the year of redemp­tion for key play­ers like Ken Bono and Ateneo’s Three Kings; the resur­gent Adam­son Fal­cons squad, the Cin­derella team of the Year in the UST Tigers, and the Blue Eagles who qui­etly and with­out much fan­fare led the league for the entire season.

And it was also (and maybe more fit­ting) the Year of the Coach.

Joe Lipa moved back to his old stomp­ing grounds for the fourth time (one as a player and three as a coach) where his pon­galan­galas are once more the catch phrase for a gen­er­a­tion of Maroon bas­ket­ball play­ers and where he is cur­rently breed­ing a championship-caliber team.

Then there’s the father of Juniors MVP Bacon Aus­tria in Coach Leo of Adam­son. The for­mer Rookie of the Year and coach of Shell in the PBA engi­neered a sparkling turn­around for the San Marcelino team where other pedi­greed men­tors failed.

There was Dindo Pumaren embroiled in the midst of another coach­ing con­tro­versy two years run­ning with the same player. After win­ning nearly every off-season tour­ney, his Red War­riors flopped mis­er­ably in the cam­paign that really mattered.

And we saw once more of Pido Jaren­cio. To a gen­er­a­tion of bas­ket­ball fans, they know him as the Fire­man who played on that great Gine­bra San Miguel teams. But to those who watched the UAAP (when it was nowhere near fash­ion­able to watch) in the early 80’s, he was the penul­ti­mate heart­breaker for the Glow­ing Goldies teams (the ulti­mate honor belongs to none other than the almost-Blue Eagle Allan Caidic who went on to play for the UE Red War­riors) who peri­od­i­cally shot down young talent-laden Ate­neo teams. He coached as he played back then — with a lot of class. Did you see him lead the UST con­grat­u­la­tory cheers at the end of Game 1? Con­grat­u­la­tions, Coach. You finally bagged the tro­phy that eluded you dur­ing your play­ing years. May you have a few more but not at our expense again.

And there was Nor­man Black. It’s not every day you land a blue (or black) chip coach with impres­sive cre­den­tials as both a player and a coach. I wrote before that when we landed Joe Lipa it was like win­ning a cham­pi­onship itself. I felt the same with Nor­man who has long been the epit­ome of a classy and hard-working pro­fes­sional. It was extremely grat­i­fy­ing for me as were all who were present at the Church of the Gesu after the dis­heart­en­ing loss that Coach Nor­man under­stood and found the mean­ing of com­mu­nity in our school and that the past two years were the best in his long and dis­tin­guished career. That he got the team to play at an extremely high level; that he got the key play­ers to raise the level of their game despite being unseeded this year is tes­ta­ment to his abil­ity. As Macky Escalona said, Coach, we’d go to bat­tle with you any­time.
Epilogue

For the most part of the sea­son we were the heart­break­ers. Yet in a cruel twist of fate, it was a heart­break­ing loss that awaited us in the end. It’s a loss that will res­onate long after per­haps only until the 18^th ban­ner is hoisted high up in the Blue Eagle Gym rafters. Sure UST deserved the win. Why not? They had their own Cin­derella sea­son that reprised our mag­i­cal 2002 ride. And they only did what real cham­pion teams do – they repay their tor­men­tors in kind. After all, how crush­ing a blow was the end to Game 1? But the gap between games 1 and 2 (thanks to Typhoon Milenyo) made sure that the debil­i­tat­ing loss was a dis­tant mem­ory by the time they shel­lacked us in Game 2 87–61.

I choose not to dwell any­more on the what-ifs for my heart still aches. If I’m sad then how much more the play­ers who left it all on the court? They’re the ones who’ll carry that for some time. As always, the words of wis­dom and heal­ing dur­ing the Mass at Gesu helped put things in per­spec­tive. Despite falling short of the objec­tive, there are plenty of moments for us to share and regale our­selves in.
Remem­ber how those bright Blue Eagles flew?

Remem­ber when Eman Mon­fort came in against UE and gave them the shock of their lives…

Remem­ber when Eric made us say “Sala­mat!” in that game against UP?
You know the drill.

Animo Ate­neo!