One Big Fight // August 10, 2009

photo by the wonderful regina belmonte

I’m the one person in the world who is probably the least likely to be interested in sports of any kind. Mostly because I am not good at any of them. (My favorite P.E. class in college was PE 101, which was basically a lecture class on health and the human body.) And it’s not just sports. I basically suck at everything that concerns any sort of physicality and/or coordination.¹

And so, I find my great (and I do mean great) investment in Ateneo basketball games (and only Ateneo basketball games) curious.

I know it’s not because of the personal opinion that Ateneo! Is! The! Best! for two reasons: a) I’d been supporting the Ateneo Blue Eagles since I was a high school freshman at an all-girls private school so the “school spirit” really came from nowhere; Ateneo wasn’t even my first choice, and b) I hated being Atenean, until about the second semester of second year when I experienced a complete turn-around, out of nowhere, and suddenly realized that I did love — yes, love! — bleeding blue.

It’s definitely not about the sport because I don’t know the rules completely, I don’t know all the terms. Sometimes, I cheer by mistake because I misread the ref’s calls. I have no idea what a turnover is, what the difference between all those fouls are, how many minutes each quarter starts with, and I could go on about the things I don’t know about basketball, but I will spare you.

It’s not about the grace of the game, or winning them — school spirit or no school spirit.

I think the reason why I am so deeply invested in the Ateneo games is because I deeply believe in the Ateneo way. In Magis, in being a man for others, in doing things for the greater glory of God. Watching Ateneo games, regardless of the outcome, makes me witness such an admirable display of perseverance, where there is always something more to want and to aspire to.

They almost always feel like that last scene from The Two Towers, where Frodo is about to quit, but Sam won’t let him. “There’s some good in the world, and it’s worth fighting for.” In other words, it’s not over, until it’s over. Personally, it has rarely ever been about winning so I could gloat about my school’s victory, or about using basketball stats to prove which school is better.

I love the games because every time Ateneo wins, it always feels to me as though the good guys win, and it always feels stellar to be a part of that. It’s like being in a family. Watching Ateneo win is exhilirating. Watching Ateneo lose is disappointing, but in a strange way, comforting, because there is always that knowledge that what we did was try, try, try, and no one can fault anyone for losing after all that trying.

This sounds like sentimental claptrap, because it is sentimental. It’s sentimental because I am not really, in the strictest sense, a basketball fan. A main reason why I enjoy watching games because I enjoy seeing the players do better. Even if we’ve never spoken to each other, or if some of them seem like douches (haha) in real life, during an Ateneo game, they feel like family, and it feels great seeing them just really try to be better.

Regina wrote that there is nothing in the world like an Ateneo-La Salle game, and I really and willfully concede to this observation. There’s nothing like an Ateneo-La Salle game because there is probably no other tandem in the world that fights as fervently in what they believe in. Eric Salamat in a Guidon article: “Actually every La Salle-Ateneo game, yung fire ng mga players talagang gusto nilang durugin yung isa’t isa para ipakita talaga yung school pride.” I’m not really in an I-want-to-crush-people-from-the-other-school mood and never really have been, but Eric is right, because what I basically really want to say, and what I’ve been trying to say for the past few hundred words can be summed up in four:

And that is precisely why, to borrow from the NBA, “I love this game!²”

———
¹ New Family Joke: They said that the only exercise I get in is via my flailing about whenever Ateneo scores or misses a shot.
² But only if Ateneo is playing.

3 Comments »

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1. I hope this doesn’t bite me in the ass when I’ve all gone and graduated, never seen a game live yet. TV pa lang e HAHAHA.

   Comment by Martin — August 10, 2009 #

2. Yay thanks for the article pimpage.

   So much word at your whole entry but most especially this: “A main reason why I enjoy watching games because I enjoy seeing the players do better. Even if we’ve never spoken to each other, or if some of them seem like douches (haha) in real life, during an Ateneo game, they feel like family, and it feels great seeing them just really try to be better.” -> That’s me and sports in a (long) nutshell. Haha

   Comment by Raymond — August 11, 2009 #

3. Martin: Loads of people haven’t — You are missing out.

   Raymond: Yaaaay. Sarap lang talaga kasi manood.

   Comment by Carina — August 11, 2009 #

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