Open Season

(READ THIS! Taken from my Monday column in the Business Mirror October 1, 2007)

Open Season
by rick olivares

As a player for the fabled Toyota Tamaraws teams of the early years of the PBA, Ed Cordero heard the catcalls and the boos from the Crispanatics in the crowd whether on his way to the court or back into the dugout. As a practice, Cordero almost never looked up to the crowd. It wasn’t as if he was aloof or unmindful of people; he was afraid that he might react negatively to the hecklers in the audience. It’s a practice he has carried with him whether as former deputy commissioner of the defunct Metropolitan Basketball Association or as the current commissioner with the University Athletics Association of the Philippines.

This UAAP Season 70’s Men’s Basketball Tournament has been one of the most hard-fought and hotly contested in recent memory with six of the eight teams in the hunt for a semi-finals berth until the last two games of the elimination round. With every battle for ball possession, partisan fans of the schools have alternated with cheers, jeers, taunts, and expletives. That’s nothing unusual when you think about it. But in the light of all the scandals, reports of game fixing, betting, and terrible terrible officiating, it’s incredible when you think that college hoops is dirtier than pro basketball.

It came to a boil last weekend when one fan ran down to Commissioner’s Row to unleash a torrent of language more colorful than the UAAP opening that Cordero also described as “setting a Guinness record for most number of expletives in a minute.”

The fan was upset that his team, the Ateneo Blue Eagles have been on the raw end of the officiating for quite awhile now (extending to last season’s finals and I agree with him). On the other hand, the manner in which he chose to vent his anger and frustrations – while I understand why he did it – is still not right. This reportedly wasn’t his first run in with the Commissioner.

College ball is a family affair. Chances are if you went to a certain school, the rest of your family matriculated there as well. So going to the games is both a family reunion and homecoming and we have to be careful of what we say out there. If I were to rate these games like a movie, I’d say they’re a combination of General Patronage and Restricted (although some of the older generation may slap the female cheerleaders’ garb and routine with an X rating).

In an unprecedented move, the UAAP Board last Thursday banned the Ateneo fan from watching the live games for the remainder of the all the year’s events until the end of Season 72. Although Cordero concedes that the UAAP isn’t the worst (the MBA is all together a different animal because of it’s region-based rivalries) in terms of the heckling, he feels that given the people watching are from the more elite schools, they should be able to comport themselves better.

Taunting, heckling, and fan violence all over the world have been on the upsurge in the last few years and have triggered some of the most incredulous, shameful, and unforgettable scenes we’ve witnessed.

After the second round eliminations match between San Beda and Letran in the just-concluded Season 83 seniors’ basketball tourney in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the two teams shook hands and were on their way to the dugout when some louts in red showered the Knights coaching staff with insults. The staff charged the fans and a free-for-all erupted inside the arena.

A few years ago, one of the worst fan and player brawls occurred during a National Basketball Association game. The infamously dubbed Malice at the Palace erupted when some idiot threw a glass of iced water on the Indiana Pacers’ Ron Artest who along with two other teammates stormed into the stands and began flailing away.

In England just last March, a Tottenham Spurs fan decided it would be a swell idea to attack Chelsea’s Frank Lampard after the teams’ FA Cup match. He was rewarded for his effort by being stomped on by players and stadium security alike.

And last weekend, just a few hours before the Cordero-fan incident, during a Small Basketeers game between Ateneo and La Salle Zobel, a father of one of the Junior Archers hit an Ateneo player after the game and during the singing of the school’s alma mater hymn. Apparently this numbskull thought that the raised fists during the singing were a call to arms. Some people are only good for "batok-then-takbo” or picking on kids, I tell you.

But I have to ‘fess up. Yes, I alternately cheer, heckle, complain, call upon Divine Providence, and cuss. But… at a much much lower level (sounding rather defensive, am I) than I used to.

You see a couple of years ago, some old classmates and I watched an Ateneo-UE match (this was in 2002) and I hurled a “PI-laced” sentence at one of the Red Warriors who was mocking our crowd. Quite a few people laughed and I thought none of it. Nothing out of the unusual, right?

Wrong. That very evening, the young son of one of my friends who watched the game with us used the exact same “PI-laced” exclamation I said only a few hours earlier. During their family dinner, no less. Although he was smiling when he repeated it he obviously didn’t understand what it meant. But that’s beside the point. When his unamused mom asked from whom did he hear and learn that from, he said it was from me.

Man! That was one of my most embarrassing and shameful moments. It’s something I’ll never ever forget. I apologized profusely then and am doing it once more in the pages of a national newspaper. Hey, Peppy. Tito Rick apologizes. Sorry!

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system… heckling has been around for as long as sports have. But lately, it's taken a brutal bend towards a bad direction and we fans really need a reality check. And maybe schools should start to police their own ranks. And know ye that the UAAP Board is constantly looking for ways to improve the officiating. Always. In a recent seminar given by a known FIBA zebra, the local officiating was described in local parlance to quote Commissioner Cordero as, “tawag nana.” Yes they do have their work cut out for them. The situation sucks I know, but there it is. We just have to try and make it better.

Just because you paid P300 (or several hundreds or thousands more if you got your ticket from a scalper) that doesn't give you the right to throw beer at an athlete or call the players, referees, and opponents by their full names and insult even their ancestors. Hmm. Come to think of it, maybe some of them do deserve it. Nah… I was kidding, okay?

Cheer, heckle, criticize, boo, pull out the best "yo momma" line and scream like you’re auditioning for a slasher flick. But never cross the line of being an acceptable rabid fan to a complete moron. It gives sports a black eye.