University of the Visayas: Sports excellence beyond expectation

For the past seven decades, the University of the Visayas (UV) had been a blazing symbol of basketball excellence. Testament to that are the innumerable trophies stacked in the treasure vault of the Gullases and the countless championship banners that proudly hang on the hallowed halls of the UV Gym.

UV, then known as the Visayan Institute (VI), first shot into fame when it beat the fancied University of Sto. Tomas (UST) to become the first ever provincial team to win the National Inter-Collegiate Championship in 1938.

Since that historic triumph, UV has incessantly kept that winning legacy to eventually evolve as the second winningest collegiate ballclub in the country next to Ateneo de Manila University in terms of National Inter-Collegiate titles won.

Fast forward to the new millennium, UV has established once again its supreme reign as the region’s undisputed basketball superpower by sweeping all six championships in the CESAFI cage wars since the league’s birth in 2000, dropping only one out of 68 games in that amazing six-year run.

The thing of beauty is that the overwhelming success of the mighty Lancers in basketball has somewhat become a source of strength and a fountain of inspiration to the present crop of UV athletes. Armed with that impetus, the Visayanian athletic army courageously rise to challenge and excel in their respective sporting disciplines.

Worth mentioning for is word wizard Teodoro Martus, Jr., who topped the Philippine qualifying event to earn the right to represent the country in the fourth leg of the World Scrabble Championships set on November 9 to 11, 2007 in India. Interestingly, a UV player in John Edward Tabasa was first to achieve the feat in the 2005 WSC in London, England.

The UV Green Wizards of team manager Ann R. Gullas and coach Marsha H. Malbas also reign as the undisputed scrabble champion in the Cebu City Olympics, missing only one out of 13 titles since the 1997 edition of the event.

UV also takes pride for having Jusabelle Brillo and Armie Janez Igot, who conquered insurmountable odds to win the championship of the Nestea Beach Volley Season 11 last April in Boracay Island.

The UV jocks also shone brightly in gymnastics, badminton, karatedo and lawn tennis. Gymnasts Wilan Bacalla and Khrysstine Ava Bantugan snatched gold medals in this year’s Palarong Pambansa last April 19-25 in General Santos City, while shuttlecock artists Rolando Suico, Brian Tanudra and Arthur Dignos dug up gold medals in the Regional PRISAA badminton event.

Karatekas Jerome Tapilot and Galil Aiza Nacario were gold medallists in the National PRISAA 2007 in Iloilo City. Francis Largo and Larry Antigua ruled the men’s doubles event in the 2007 Palarong Pambansa lawn tennis competition, while Oswaldo Dumoran is the defending singles champion in the 2007 CESAFI lawn tennis tournament.

The members of the UV PolSci Debating Team - Rachelle Ann Paganao (Best Debater), Micky Macorol (Best Rebutalist), Habeas Corpuz, and Juril Patino, also deserved a hearty pat on their backs for outwitting equally-tough contenders from University of the Philippine-Visayas (UPV) Cebu College, University of Cebu (UC), Cebu Normal University (CNU), and University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) to emerge as grand champion in the Cebu Association of Political Science Organization debating contest last March.

I wondered for a while on what drives the UV athletes in achieving these remarkable feats at once. It did not take long for me to find the answer as when I gaze through the inscriptions of the UV Athletic Office logo, it reads “Sports Excellence Beyond Expectations.”