I was asked by the Guidon's sports editor Favian Pua to contribute a guest column in the final issue of the school newspaper for SY 2008-09 and man, that is the coolest. I have not submitted a piece to the Guidon in over 20 years! Hahahaha. Thanks! And yes, I make it a point to read the Guidon every time it's out.
Love and Sports
by rick olivares
How do you deal with a break-up?
With all the time in the world to dwell on a relationship gone wrong, I opted to accept a friend’s invite to watch a basketball game. Instead, we engaged in a form of Parkour as we weaved through the rain and oil slick streets against the mad rush of traffic. We ducked into one building after another in that rat’s maze of old Manila. We had to as we sought shelter from the storm.
It wasn’t easy as we lugged cumbersome gym bags from the light rail transit as the skies pelted us with raindrops the size of fishballs.
Was the liberation of Manila like this – street by street; building by building?
I assure you though that there was nothing liberating about having all our bags searched. Did these security guards at Arellano University think that we were going to smuggle in a bomb or a high-powered weapon to a division two basketball game? You can be sure that this almost never happens to the UAAP team.
The gym doubled also as the auditorium and the only dressing room was the stage. You just had to draw the curtains. And the coach -- he carried the white board, a stopwatch, and a sack full of basketballs. During timeouts, the players drank water from their Colemans that each and everyone had to bring lest they go thirsty.
The game was plenty surreal. The home fans actually rooted for the visitors in blue and white. On the spot they made up their Ateneo fight songs never mind if the rhyme was bad poetry. There was a near fight… not between the players but from the handful of supporters who braved the elements, the pickpockets and cellphone snatchers, and the lack of parking spaces to watch and cheer. And when the spirit moved them… to jeer.
What mattered was far away from the sheltered confines of Loyola, a team of aspirants gave their foes one big fight.
I came away with an intense desire to share what I had just witnessed. When I got home, I pounded the keyboard and posted what I thought was the ultimate hoop junkie vibe. Having written in the various school publications since grade school, it was a sort of a homecoming not to mention cathartic.
In 2004, a hybrid team composed of Team A & B players of the men's basketball team played a similarly composed FEU squad in that sweatshop they call a gym in Morayta. They played an epic five overtimes in a Fr. Martin Cup match before Ateneo lost by three points. That was the game that was officially the coming out party of Chris Tiu as he hit one buzzer beater after another in a shootout with the Tams' Jeff Chan.
One year later, another team, this time with only seven players, suited up against the College of Saint Benilde (that suited up 16 players) in a Home & Away League game in Taft. Ateneo ran out of players due to foul trouble and lost in double overtime to the Blazers by two points.
In 2007, the Ateneo Men's Football Team played the UP Maroons in the Terry Razon Cup where they came back from three goals down to draw the match at 5-5.
Those matches might not have ended with a win but they will go down in Ateneo sports history as some of the greatest games… no one saw.
It has been four years since of writing about heartbreak and achievement. Chronicling various varsity teams (even those who toil in anonymity) who give pause for me and many to ponder whether sports mirrors life or life mirrors sports.
It’s relative if you want to know but what it has done is send me down the road I initially did not take.
A road as a national sportswriter when I always thought that I was first and foremost a marketing and advertising man.
These aren't simply infatuations of a confessed sports junkie but a commitment of a disciple of the late American sportscaster Jim McKay who famously intoned his network’s mission of "Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport… the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat… the human drama of athletic competition!"
Writing rekindled a love for sports – that first took hold of my body when I was gifted with a football in grade school. It continued right through intrams to varsity try outs to cheering the team through the lean years.
For many it was just a game. But for me… it was magic. And it served as a distraction and a way to cope with a break up. Yet in some ways it’s finding that first love.
With all the time in the world to dwell on a relationship gone wrong, I opted to accept a friend’s invite to watch a basketball game. Instead, we engaged in a form of Parkour as we weaved through the rain and oil slick streets against the mad rush of traffic. We ducked into one building after another in that rat’s maze of old Manila. We had to as we sought shelter from the storm.
It wasn’t easy as we lugged cumbersome gym bags from the light rail transit as the skies pelted us with raindrops the size of fishballs.
Was the liberation of Manila like this – street by street; building by building?
I assure you though that there was nothing liberating about having all our bags searched. Did these security guards at Arellano University think that we were going to smuggle in a bomb or a high-powered weapon to a division two basketball game? You can be sure that this almost never happens to the UAAP team.
The gym doubled also as the auditorium and the only dressing room was the stage. You just had to draw the curtains. And the coach -- he carried the white board, a stopwatch, and a sack full of basketballs. During timeouts, the players drank water from their Colemans that each and everyone had to bring lest they go thirsty.
The game was plenty surreal. The home fans actually rooted for the visitors in blue and white. On the spot they made up their Ateneo fight songs never mind if the rhyme was bad poetry. There was a near fight… not between the players but from the handful of supporters who braved the elements, the pickpockets and cellphone snatchers, and the lack of parking spaces to watch and cheer. And when the spirit moved them… to jeer.
What mattered was far away from the sheltered confines of Loyola, a team of aspirants gave their foes one big fight.
I came away with an intense desire to share what I had just witnessed. When I got home, I pounded the keyboard and posted what I thought was the ultimate hoop junkie vibe. Having written in the various school publications since grade school, it was a sort of a homecoming not to mention cathartic.
In 2004, a hybrid team composed of Team A & B players of the men's basketball team played a similarly composed FEU squad in that sweatshop they call a gym in Morayta. They played an epic five overtimes in a Fr. Martin Cup match before Ateneo lost by three points. That was the game that was officially the coming out party of Chris Tiu as he hit one buzzer beater after another in a shootout with the Tams' Jeff Chan.
One year later, another team, this time with only seven players, suited up against the College of Saint Benilde (that suited up 16 players) in a Home & Away League game in Taft. Ateneo ran out of players due to foul trouble and lost in double overtime to the Blazers by two points.
In 2007, the Ateneo Men's Football Team played the UP Maroons in the Terry Razon Cup where they came back from three goals down to draw the match at 5-5.
Those matches might not have ended with a win but they will go down in Ateneo sports history as some of the greatest games… no one saw.
It has been four years since of writing about heartbreak and achievement. Chronicling various varsity teams (even those who toil in anonymity) who give pause for me and many to ponder whether sports mirrors life or life mirrors sports.
It’s relative if you want to know but what it has done is send me down the road I initially did not take.
A road as a national sportswriter when I always thought that I was first and foremost a marketing and advertising man.
These aren't simply infatuations of a confessed sports junkie but a commitment of a disciple of the late American sportscaster Jim McKay who famously intoned his network’s mission of "Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport… the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat… the human drama of athletic competition!"
Writing rekindled a love for sports – that first took hold of my body when I was gifted with a football in grade school. It continued right through intrams to varsity try outs to cheering the team through the lean years.
For many it was just a game. But for me… it was magic. And it served as a distraction and a way to cope with a break up. Yet in some ways it’s finding that first love.
No comments:
Post a Comment