one big fight!

as far as i'm concerned, UAAP basketball season's over for me. what an awful and embarrassing way to end after such a brilliant beginning.

the months between july and september are my absolute favorite months for basketball. this is the only time of the year when i actually like the game and can spend hours at a time watching and talking about the game. this, from the most apathetic person in the world when it comes to sports.

ateneo's basketball team started so unbelievably well. six (or was it seven?) straight wins, effectively sweeping the first round. then larry hurt his knee. and everything went downhill from there. it got so bad that even UP beat them, and the last win against NU was a difficult win at best. unbelievable.

and yesterday's game, oh man. i deliberately chose to go to mass at 4:30 so i would be spared the early quarters of the game. the mass ended exactly as the thrid quarter started and it was such a good start. then it got simply embarrassing after a while. it got so painful that a few minutes before the quarter ended, i switch channels to see what kris and boy were talking about in the buzz.

i'm the lousiest fan in the world. at bad games, i have been caught screaming "i am going to f***ing murder you!!!" at the ateneo players (albeit through the tv screen) when the team does a particularly bad play. similarly, i have been known to yell "rip his f***ing head off!!!" when the game gets to be a bit too physical. i guess i'm lucky that i am forever too lazy to scavenge for tickets otherwise it would be my head that would be f***ing ripped off at the game.

i've been cheering for this team for 20 years -- that's more than half my life. andno matter how much i scream for them and at them, they've only managed to win three championships, two when i was still too young to go to ateneo, and one when i had loooong graduated from ateneo already. it's been more a period of loss than of victory.

but cheer for them i will. i still have forty good years of screaming and cheering left. they may suck, they may choke, they may do one bad play after another, but they are responsible for some of the brightest and shiniest moments of ateneo pride i did not even realize i had. where else can you find a school where, after 13 years of never winning, finally win a championship and as if by some secret signal, draw old and young ateneans to katipunan for an impromptu party that was waiting for 13 years to happen? for that championship, the victory was too big to contain by one's self that we all had to go to ateneo to share in the victory there. magic.

they're my blue eagles and i will cheer and scream for them forever.

go ateneo! one big fight!