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.
Svelte loves Sport 
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