On Dec. 3, the sound of the final buzzer signaled the end of the men’s basketball championship in Season 80 of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP).
They had no business being here. During the summer, the Ateneo de Manila University Blue Eagles men’s basketball team lost...
According to urban legend, in the 1930s, after the La Salle Green Archers beat the Ateneo Blue Eagles in a championship basketball game, La Salle students threw pieces of fried chicken at the gate of Ateneo’s Padre Faura campus. (Chicken, being the next best thing to fried eagles.)
Since the Eagles and Lady Eagles were earlier “arrowed” down by their green counterparts, the younger ones knew they had to step up. So on July 21, during the season’s first blue-green encounter in the juniors division, the Ateneo Blue Eaglets upped their game quite literally. It was among the longest 40 minutes that heralded the legendary rivalry between Ateneo and La Salle.
In the July 28 showdown between rivals Ateneo de Manila University and De la Salle University, students braved the long line and early hours (1 a.m.) of ticket-selling just to get good seats.
The last time I enjoyed an Ateneo-La Salle game, live, was almost a year ago. It was Aug. 28, somehow the “end” of a terrible playing season for my Green Archers, but for some reason, even though ticket availability to this legendary display of rivalry (which probably sold more than any other game in UAAP history) was iffy, I still believed I could get inside the coliseum hassle-free—just because I willed it.
Nico Salva was in the shadow of the more popular players in his first few years as a Blue Eagle.
It was a day made especially for them. The boys played with their hearts. They did not even give the Far Eastern University Tamaraws a chance to breathe with their fastbreaks and running game. Their lopsided victory emphasized that the day was theirs and nobody was going to take it from them.
The country witnessed another chapter in the age-old rivalry between the Ateneo Blue Eagles and the De La Salle Green...
