what a dismal result for mi rafael: a 6-3, 6-0 trouncing of the former world number 1.
like me, rafa has been having a horrible 2011. little did i know — and rafa, too — that when i conceded this year as “the year of the nole”, that i would spiritually hold rafa’s hand and walk down hell’s road.
but 2012 belongs to rafa… and please, dear god, to me as well! because i believe!
At the Launch of the ATP World Finals
i have openly supported the FEU tamaraws since 2010, when coach L became the team sports psychologist.
before i continue, even though this next statement comes across as superfluous, i feel it still needs to be said: people are entitled to their preferences. i have preferred to root for the tamaraws above any other team in the university athletic association of the philippines for the last two years running. those who know me — and i mean really know me — will understand why. to the others who don’t know me nor care to know me, they never will.
i know for a fact that i know much about sports — enough for me to be confident that my sports IQ is way above average, and certainly much higher than that of the casual (or poser) fans who are only around when it’s hip to be so.
having said the above, it irked me much when a bunch of ignorant alums from my university decried my supporting the feu tamaraws and insinuating that people from my school may have been paying the officials to determine the outcome of certain games in my alma mater’s favour.
to those who raised hell and never came back — such was their ugliness, stupidity, and depravity, really — i was decried as a traitor of the institution. one degenerate, completely ugly asshole with an equally assholic girlfriend who happens to be my colleague, thought he had the moral obligation and superiority to call me out for it by launching the nastiest diatribes against my person in cyberspace. (to him i say ’til this day: fvck off. believe me, every time anyone sees you and your patron pumba-lookalike around school, they all know the only thing you’ve got going for you is your money. your trophy girlfriend is as flat-chested as they come with a big nose to boot. repeat after me: you’re ugly as hell and your girlfriend makes olive oyle look sexy. yes, i’m a bitch and prettier than you both combined. and you know it.) the d1ckhead thought he knew better english than me and displayed his ignorance by [sic]’ing me in cyberspace. and other alums, being the shallow, small-minded cretins that they were (one even writes for gmanews online — when i saw her name, i balked… and then realised she didn’t know squat about sport, not one iota), agreed and cried to have my head on a platter. what a bunch of sorry asses. 
all this in the wonderful world of facebook, where there are no real faces, only farces.
i can’t wait for the day when the asses of those half-witted haters get a royal kicking. and it will come sooner than they know it.
… rafa has come out with his new autobiography, 
“Rafa”, and i’m totally getting myself a copy of it!
the US open is just around the corner. sorry, UAAP, but there are bigger things in life than college hoops. 🙂
my rafa boy is struggling this year and if i were his manager, i have already given this year to nole but will be priming him to take over everything, including the london olympics, in 2012. that’s just how it is.
all roads lead to flushing meadows and i have a long weekend to relish the beginning of the last slam of the year.
ateneo had its stirring, rousing story in its come-from-behind “all-out, all-heart” victory over the feu tamaraws last saturday, august 13 (also the day a drunk jeepney driver slammed into my car at 10 in the evening), and i wasn’t as devastated as i thought i might be. a close friend sent me a comforting text and i was touched by the gesture. however, i couldn’t tell him that i had fully expected feu to lose and was thrilled pink when they led for most of the game. when the eagles started to mount their comeback in the second half, though, i predicted, with some dread, that feu would lose, especially with a dome filled with manic blue-clad fans. i was not to be proven wrong.
so when feu staged their own dramatic comeback against (yet!) another school of mine, the UP fighting maroons, i was screaming in relief and then much later, wiping away some tears of happiness. how amazing is it, really, to watch ryan roose garcia relentlessly pour 80% of his points in the second half after a listless 5 point output in the previous two quarters? and take this: of the 20 points he produced in the second half, 20 of those came in the last quarter. even more amazing, 12 of those came consecutively, and it was on the 10th point that he tied feu with the maroons, his 12th to finally, finally take the lead. russel escoto sank his free throws to give feu a cushion of 4 points.
amazing ryan roose, reigning mvp. i wrote him a personal message on facebook with this very emphatic bottom line: thank you, rr, for giving me a chance to cheer more for feu in season 74. thank you. 🙂
one of my colleagues, M, told me yesterday, as i was enroute to the big dome to watch the double header of UP-UST and Ateneo-FEU games, “you have to decide before you enter araneta which your outer and inner selves will be.”
he was referring to the fact that i had many affinities and loyalties as far as UAAP men’s basketball was concerned. studying at the state U makes me a maroon. being an alum of AdMU makes me a blue eagle. what binds me to the FEU tamaraws? simply this: filial love. my brother. because of him i have gotten to know most of the tamaraws. case in point: jens knuttel. today, we exchanged private messages on facebook. apart from the fact that i have loved the way he plays since last season, i was able to tell him that i knew he hailed from ateneo de zamboanga high school and that i knew the principal and that one of my very good friends (JVP partner, more like it) lives in zambo. that paved the way for our becoming, well, facebook “friends”.
i vowed last season, after watching the two game sweep final between ateneo and feu that i would never watch them play live again. by live, i mean in person, at the big dome, so close to both teams. i broke that vow. gifted — yet again — with a patron ticket, i opted to stay in upper a and watch the tams and eagles from “afar”. it didn’t work. i was torn early in the game and near tears towards the end when those unnecessary technical fouls were slapped on feu.
my outer self was ostensibly blue: i knew the OBF and get that ball cheers. i could sing the school hymn from memory (thanks to the glee club, really, rather than to my being a fan of ateneo sports) better than my friend sitting next to me who was more committed and rabid in her support of the eagles, even when they were widening the lead over the hapless tamaraws. but i knew what my inner self was, and where my heart truly bled.
the truth is, i don’t know how much longer i can bleed for a talented squad that won’t allow itself to win. it’s as agonising as cheering for andy murray in tennis; the not-anymore-a-kid’s oozing with talent but he has been so since his breakout year many years ago when he was still a teenager. at a certain point in the fanaticism of it all, the heart gets tired. the heart wants to root for a winner. and feu, i’m afraid, will not be winning anytime soon.
the husband knew, when i turned to him late in the fourth quarter, that he had comforting to do. “you were misty-eyed,” he told me earlier today. “you always get emotional when your team loses.”
and it’s true. i couldn’t sleep because of that loss.
don’t get me wrong. for every scintillating play or successful fastbreak conversion that the eagles executed, i was appluading them warmly. but i knew, deep inside, that each clap was a death knell for the tams.
Aldrech against Adamson, FilOil 2011 pre-season tournament
i’m going out on a limb — one that is sure to break from all the other people who are already there — and predict a four-peat for the ateneo blue eagles.
my maverick heart, however, will madly hope (against hope) that somehow, somehow, the team that could have will become the team that really can. if the tamaraws are going to walk down the path of the dallas mavericks, one of nba’s heartbreak teams and best sentimental storyline of 2011, they need to start playing more like a team and recognise that their dirk nowitzki is not rr garcia but aldrech ramos. and i end with that provocative thought. or perhaps not.
brad gilbert once said that doing whatever it takes to win is doing enough to get the desired result: a win. you studied your opponent closely and developed a game plan that would address his weaknesses and you stuck to it and won. you may not have the best strokes, the best serve, the best return, but by doing what you needed to win, it didn’t matter if you looked ugly.
gilbert established himself not only as a tier 2 professional player but as the coach of andre agassi, the fiery player from las vegas who achieved his career slam late in his career.
i bring him up in light of the exciting FEU-UST game last saturday at the big dome where FEU, for the third time in 5 outings, eked out a come-from-behind victory over an inspired jeric teng-led UST growling tigers. with 24 seconds left in the game, the reigning MVP, rr garcia, looked to make it into a one-ball possession for the tams with a last minute shot to avoid 5 minutes of overtime that could go UST’s way. using up 14 seconds of dwindling time, he drove down the lane, the defense collapsing on him. he dished a no-look pass to a wide-open cris tolomia who stood calmly outside the arc as he made a trey with only 2.9 seconds left. with no timeouts left for either team, a desperate UST shot the ball from downcourt which was dreadfully short. the tamaraws had slipped past the tigers, 62-59, the second time they won by 3 points in a week’s time.
i told L, my trusty patron ticket provider for all FEU games (except for the exciting one slated for this saturday against the blue eagles), that i liked how FEU’s first round of games were shaping up. losing badly to the adamson falcons in their first game, they climbed to barely-there victories in their outings against UE, NU, and, two days ago, UST. on their AdU loss, i jokingly told my brother that it was so much better to lose by much (they suffered the ignominy of a 20-point+ loss to the falcons) than by one or two points, which would have broken their hearts. the tamaraws, winning on luck, chance, or pure serendipity in the last three outings, are learning early that nothing comes easy and that they need to work on defensive sets and gelling as a team.
as it is, i’m not comfortable with the way bert flores keeps experimenting with different combinations of players, mixing three big men (cawaling, ramos, and sentchu) with two guards (garcia and romeo), or three small men (garcia, romeo, tolomia/excimiano) with two big men (ramos/cawaling and sentchu). when things appear to be working well in terms of the chemistry of the players on the floor, flores introduces substitutions at that point, and i’m thinking it’s to experiment with yet another set of players and plays.
winning ugly in the last three games, i’m hoping that FEU begin to win beautiful entering the second round of games. this is not to discount their coming two games against UP and ateneo, this thursday and saturday, respectively. (yes, i will be there to watch both match-ups!)
i do believe that they are the only team capable of making a dent in the ateneo juggernaut and possibly share the top spot with this season’s hosts. if they don’t, i’m happy enough with their second place status. but not secure enough. without their big men from last year, cervantes and noundou, FEU struggle in dominating the boards on both ends and clogging up the centre to deflate drives from offense-orientated teams like ateneo and adamson. with no signature play to their name, the tamaraws seem to struggle to find themselves in a league populated with teams with trademark plays (i.e. the DLSU full-court press, for one).
no doubt about it, the tamaraws have the unbridled talent but if they want to take it all the way this year after coming so close last season, they will have to start doing what it takes to win, even if it is scrappy and ugly. as their cheering fans do with military-like arm movements, one can only yell, “let’s go, tamaraws, let’s go!”
RR Garcia against the UE Red Warriors in Season 73
the news feeds were gray: the rookie showdown was a fiasco; bobby ray parks of the NU bulldogs fizzled out against the sizzling kiefer ravena of the ateneo blue eagles. scratch that. how about tj manotoc pathetically predicting an FEU downfall against *gasp* the struggling UE warriors? it didn’t happen. the second quarter was all it took for the first half to be considered exciting and the rest was a walk in the park for the tamaraws.
it was, however, good to watch such games if only to remind us basketball fans that the teams we do root for are worth the effort.
i only have eyes for two players this season: rr garcia of feu and kiefer ravena of ateneo. everybody else who does well on the floor are bonus points. these two guards have my vote and if anyone should join their ranks, it will have to be players who display both heart and skill on the floor, and in this season when anything can happen, it could be anybody as well.
now why are seemingly boring games with 30-point differentials STILL fun to watch? let me give the reasons why.
tomorrow i will watch my UP fighting maroons try and beat the sh*t out of the de la salle archers, the one team in the UAAP i will never ever root nor cheer for, not in this lifetime or the next. nor the one after the next lifetime. i truly want to see gamboa, gomez, and the rest forge a convincing victory over the rebuilding taft team. i fully expect the eagles to roll over the warriors in the second game but if things turn out differently… then good for either, i think. ateneo will remain at the top of the leaderboard and UE won’t feel too bad about being at the bottom with one (substantial) win under their belts. i think norman black and his boys can take one defeat from a sureball cellar-dweller (at least for season 74). the warriors are so missing paul lee just about now. or since two weeks ago.
i’m sleepy. see you at the big dome!
and here i am, returning to once-loved shores of sports-writing, but with a decidedly self-serving angle involved: to write in order to heal, to rediscover myself doing what i love (and do) most.
thanks to my brother L who is the sports psychology coach of the FEU tamaraws, i was able to sit ringside in yesterday’s barely full araneta coliseum and watch, very closely, two shoo-in final four teams in their first clash of the regular season. i noted, half-heartedly, how RR garcia no longer had hair dye, or how cawaling still had an absent-minded expression, or how knuttel still got my interest when he was put in as the starting point guard and played for all of five minutes for the entire game. after watching aldrech ramos rip through the low post with his second or third drive, i leaned into my brother and yelled (above the din of adamson drums), “can’t you teach aldrech to snarl while he drives towards the basket? he totally has the moves for it!” L turned to me with a resigned expression and shrugged, “it’s not in his personality.” pity.
catching the last quarter of the second advertisement-heavy game of the eagles and the archers, i ticked off my self-imposed admiration for former classmates emman and nico. my attention, however, were on the point guards of note: LA revilla of la salle was sizzling in the dying minutes, trying desperately to infuse the archers with much-needed firepower, and kiefer ravena, highly touted rookie of the eagles. too little too late, i mused tiredly, as i watched the diminutive revilla snake his way past ateneo’s defense to steal a few hard-earned buckets. a sweaty ravena was awarded several close-ups on my tv screen even while other players were at the 15-foot line either splitting their free throws or pitching strange trajectories for pick-up points. boom enriquez was busy raving about his unrivalled basketball IQ and i agreed, not so much with the elusive explanation of what this IQ was made of, but with the fact that the rookie commanded so much more presence on the floor than any of the veterans. he made kirk long look sophomoric and emman, whose work ethic i admire, could only dream of such a commanding aura in his ilonggo reveries.
much as all the hype this season has been swirling around greg slaughter (and his non-existent residency — i think he shouldn’t be playing — if anybody is “afraid”, it would have to be the eagles, who needed to pull host clout to break existing rules just to ensure a fourth title… now there will always be that asterisk for season 74 if ateneo do win it all) when all the talk should — and rightly so — be more on the amazing game that players like ray parks (of the NU bulldogs), rr garcia, and yes, kiefer ravena, breathe into the game. this season will be scintillating because of the point guards who will create dazzling plays on the floor.
the stocktons, nashes, and abarrientoses of basketball will be the story of season 74.
how about sveltesport’s crazy basketball dreams? anyone who knows me will acknowledge my blue eagle pedigree but will also know that my undying filial devotion means half my heart is with the green and gold. but what no one knows is that i want the dark horse of the competition, the UP maroons, to shatter the penciled in predictions of the final four and grab a slot after two rounds of eliminations. i think the team have what it takes — and i put much stock into the mental aspects of the game.
and as a parting thought for my first entry, let me dwell on the crowd factor at uaap basketball games. only la salle and ateneo fans sing their school hymns at the end of every game. all other schools play cheesy minus one’s over the PA while the silly fans try to sing along half of the time. in yesterday’s adamson-feu encounter, feu fans cowered in shame, barely filling one-tenth of upper a while the adamson screamers filled up their half of the coliseum from patron to upper b. the tamaraws on the floor were clearly rattled when the screaming hordes of blue-clad anti-fans started chanting, “go palkons, gooowwww!” the feu sarimanok cheering squad had even more members on the floor than the supporters in the gallery. that’s how pathetic feu were. crowd support matter. the mindless mob screaming at every perceived gaff of the referees do matter. if there is one huge, underrated factor that feu overlooked during season 73’s final series, a season when they had swept the elimination round for an automatic berth in the final four, was how a big dome packed to the rafters with “get that ball!” and “go! ateneo!” rabid (more often than not uninformed) fans CAN turn the tide of the game. it is the crowd that can embolden an overweight ryan buenafe to step up to the three-point line in the second half of game 2 and fire a trey that will knife the tamaraws’ bid for a championship. the crowd matter.
so antonio montinola, call off classes when your tamaraws play. i’m serious. your school is not known for academic excellence but god dammit, your tams are a championship team. now get them the jologs support they badly need to finally hoist that championship trophy. i can’t stand to see sad, glum tam faces anymore. i want to see tear-streaked faces shocked into disbelief.
i sat behind one row of montinola’s yesterday and they were stoic, pa-cool, and unmoving throughout the game, even when rr garcia and sentchu (rookie #22 of the tams) helped bring the feu within 4 points of the falcons. dammit, owners, the players need to see you busting your veins the way bert flores and johnny abarrientos are jumping out of theirs skins on the sidelines!
so much for a last thought. 🙂 svelte sport is back.
Kiefer Ravena in the first encounter with arch rivals De La Salle Archers
as a blogger, impressions flood my senses like a fireworks explosion in the midnight sky. as a sportscaster wannabe, i need to focus on the facts of the moment: who’s making the winning shot? who made that dunk shot late in the third? what prompted the foul that sent the star player off the floor? there’s more. from the perspective of a tennis-football-F1 nut, my vocabulary has to expand exponentially in the shortest time possible to include phrases like “at the top of the key,” “in the paint,” and “triple”. i only know the shaded lane or the penalty area, so the paint and the top of the key, although familiar, are not yet part of my natural sports breath. i must learn to breathe those words pronto, as in due yesterday! and sure, i can say “trey” but after trying hard to think of synonyms for a three-point shot, the last one i remembered was “triple”. oh well, like i said, i need to learn the jargon fast lest i be buried not only by the flurry of events but by the competition.
but as a blogger i am most serene and secure.
during the final four games of the philippine collegiate championships last saturday at the arena in san juan, i was busy scribbling down notes in my english teacher steno notebook. i could not filter out the screaming fans, the tribal drum beats of the opposing teams’ cheering squads, and the constant hum and murmur of a restless crowd living and dying as each second brought the game towards the inevitable conclusion.
i watched the letran and san beda cheerleaders strut their stuff on the floor, yelling themselves hoarse, sweating as they jumped and danced and pumped their fists in the air before their appreciatively screaming schoolmates. and i thought, “where the hell is the blue babble? this is the heart of collegiate spirit — at these inter-league games!” i was atenista but deeply ashamed to proclaim it, in spite of the fact that we had just pipped the letran knights in the first game.
i felt more in union with the fans of letran in the first game and i willed on the knights to win the game, to show my alma mater that they were just one complacent bunch, and i wanted to see the more spirited team make it to the championships where they belonged. the “best of the best” league was made for the schools with not only the most skilled players on the floor but also in the stands, on their feet, screaming themselves hoarse, hearts racing madly.
nakakahiya kayo, ateneo, kayo lang ang walang cheering squad man lang sa stands. yuck talaga. diyahe!
mabuti pa ang letran, san beda, and even those “nincompoops” from taft. don ko lang masasabing lamang na lamang ang la salle sa atin, sa kanilang school spirit. panalo talaga sila!
and siyempre, pag cover ko ng games sa araneta bukas, expect the self-important atenistas to flood the coliseum. casual fans will be vying for seats alongside the true fans of the other schools. the shuffling alumni who look like they haven’t exercised in a decade will take the prominent seats, swing their fists, maybe even sing a song or two or yell a cheer when the mood strikes, but all i can tell you atenistas are, “fakes! where were you when your team really needed you? where were you when baclao, not fully fit, struggled to keep his team ahead of the letran knights who came within a hair of kicking our boys out of the PCC in shame!”
sheesh. expect the cheesy blue shirts over paunches and flabby braceleted arms to strut their stuff around the big dome. ma-traffic sa cubao bukas because all the silly SUVs will be clogging the lanes alongside the jeepneys and LRT 2 trains that will ferry the real fans into araneta. god save me from seeing them at all.
i will be cheering for the letran knights in the first game. as for the second… hindi ko talaga alam! sabi ko nga kay rico maierhofer when he left the arena last saturday, of course after complimenting him for being one of the most complete players i watched that day (along with jv casio, tecson, buenafe and daa), “good luck! may the better team win!” hindi ko inamin na atenista ako, at hindi ako proud sa fact na yon. kasi whichever team shows more heart, grit, passion, and the will to win will win my loyalty.
that’s how i am as a sports fan, be it tennis, football, formula one and now, well, college hoops as well.
for news reports on the exciting games last saturday, you can read what i wrote for inboundpass.com at these links (shout out to chris soler for his awesome editing! he made me look sooo good!):
i-rate niyo na rin ha, hehehe… comment na rin para medyo ma-balanse yung medyo jologs wars na di maiwasan don. let’s build traffic muli!
friends, totoo na ito! sana tuloy-tuloy na! 🙂
am i dreaming? am i going to be writing about these two universities making it to the semifinals of the philippine collegiate championships? that the two games will take place barely 4 days away is surreal to me at this point.
but it’s happening, and soon. as with so many other things i’ve been doing in the past month, i will have to hit the hardwood running… and fast! i should tell chris that i can actually cover the championship because december 8 is a friggin’ mama mary national holiday!
there goes my trip to divisoria! 🙂
Svelte loves Sport 
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