The Eaglets Fly High

Nothing gets the school spirit going like a basketball championship. And for the Ateneo high school, last year’s two-game sweep by the Eaglets for the UAAP trophy was the 17th championship for the Eaglets in the NCAA and UAAP (Ateneo competed in the NCAA league until 1977). Add to that the 2000 Southeast Asia High School Basketball Tournament plum for 18. Can they add this year’s trophy to the shelf in Loyola Heights?

The winning ways of the Ateneo Blue Eaglets started with the Chito Afable-led 1966 NCAA trophy. It took 20 years from 1946 when the NCAA was resumed after World War II for Ateneo to finally produce a winning junior team. But the long wait was worth it as the 1966 Ateneo team produced an impeccable and memorable 10—0 sweep of the tournament.

The championship years of ’73, ’75 and ’76 were led by the Steve Watson-Chito Narvasa tandem. When the Eaglets moved to the UAAP in ’78, Ogie Narvasa, Rene Banson and Chot Reyes immediately made Ateneo’s presence felt with a three-peat from ’78 to ’80.

Ateneo achieved a 4-straight as it swept the ’83, ’84, ’85 and ’86 seasons. Here was the incredible team of Jun Reyes, Gayoso, Araneta, Francisco, Canlas, Nieto and Olsen Racela, who likewise produced the Ateneo seniors team that won the ‘87 and ’88 UAAP championships.

The period of ‘87 to ’94 were drought years, perhaps due to a slackening after the string of victories. It took the dynamic Fr. Tito Caluag, SJ, who became high school principal in ’93, to take charge of producing winners once again. Fr. Caluag’s blitzkrieg athletic program produced the ’95 (led by Ryan Pamintuan and Rainier Sison) and ’97 (led by Rico Villanueva and Wesley Gonzales) champions.

Then there were the two sets of back-to-back championships–the Larry Fonacier-led teams of ’99 (a rare 14-0 sweep) and 2000, and the recent ’03 and ’04 championships led by Ken Barracoso and two diminutive guards, Jai Reyes and Carlo Medina, both producing heroic baskets that spelled incredible come-from-behind victories.

The 2003 championship series was actually a more memorable event for Ateneans. Up against a precocious, heftier and wilier Adamson junior team, Ateneo was down five points in the last 30 seconds of the first game. Feeling defeated as the opponent shackled Eaglet star Ken Barracoso, Jai Reyes took up the cudgels in the dying moments and fired a triple with 20 seconds to go, bringing Ateneo to within two. As the time ran, Adamson failed to score in its final possession and with five seconds to go, Reyes dribbled downcourt and unleashed a Hail Mary triple that swished the net, the winning basket that, to this day, continues to reverberate in the minds of the wildly cheering crowd inside the Araneta Coliseum.

The second game of the ’03 series was no different. Down by one in the last 15 seconds, Carlo Medina, Ateneo’s 5’4" veteran point guard, anxiously watched Adamson double-team Barracoso and Reyes. Finding no option, he stealthily zigzagged and scooted through the shaded area and laid up for the marginal winning basket in the last three seconds.

Ateneo’s exhilarating victories may be attributed to the highly successful home-grown sports development program that starts at the prep and grade school levels. Almost all the high school players came from the Ateneo grade school where there are intensive basketball and soccer clinics.

It is worth noting that when the Eaglets win basketball champion-ships, the nucleus of these teams–complemented by a few college recruits–go on to win seniors championships. The ‘66 juniors champions, for instance, spawned Chito Afable, Lyle Ross and Ricky Palou, the same trio that led the Blue Eagles to the ’69 NCAA Senior trophy. The ‘73 Eaglets champion team was practically intact when it moved on to the seniors division and won back-to-back (’75 and ’76) NCAA trophies. Likewise, the illustrious Eaglets of the historic four-peat (’83 to’86) brought home the seniors UAAP bacon in ’87 and ’88. The champion Eaglets of ’97 and ’99 later upheld the tradition by bagging the 2002 UAAP seniors crown.

Mens sana in corpore sano, the motto of the Ateneo, can perhaps explain why its athletes can stay on from elementary to college, tackling Ateneo’s rigid academic standards. The Jesuits insist that students–including varsity athletes–adhere to "a sound mind in a sound body" regimen. Jesuit mentors often admonish that victory in sports is one thing, but not everything. Sports, they teach, must be related to a greater sphere of life, and the essential outcome of an Atenean’s search for excellence is not only in sports but in the overall game of life.

This motto was strictly upheld when the ’68 Eaglets played against the Mapua Red Robbins in a championship game. At that time, two of the team’s stars, Vic Diamonon and Dodi Limcaoco, were suspended by the Jesuits due to failing grades. The Loyola campus went berserk. No less than the student councils of both high school and college staged a grand rally in the high school campus to protest the suspensions. But the Jesuits stuck to their decision, insisting that the infraction of Diamonon and Limcaoco on the mens sana in corpore sano ideal was more unforgivable because both belonged to the honors class.

As a result of this, the Eaglets lost that championship to the Leaño-Hubalde led Murallans. Diamonon and Limcaoco learned their painful lesson and hopefully became the wiser for it. Indeed, Ateneo stars like Ambrosio Padilla, Moro Lorenzo, Eddie Ocampo, Felix Flores, Chito Afable, Steve Watson, Chot Reyes, Olsen Racela and Enrico Villanueva have remained loyal to a sound mind and not just a strong body.

For Ateneo’s athletes, victory is always sweeter when backed by parental support. Behind many an athlete’s success is a supportive parent. Fortunately, Ateneo has an abundance of these dedicated sports parents–those who tirelessly cheer for their sons at the games, who are present in practices, who help shoulder the expense of sports materials, who lift the athletes’ spirits after a defeat, and who manifest their affection simply because their sons are Ateneo athletes…these and many more are the stuff that great yet humble sportsmen are built on.

And great athletes breed other great athletes. When athletes of the Ateneo achieve success, they naturally desire to impart this to the new recruits. The intense competition, the fighting spirit and sweet victories are what the younger Ateneans aspire to relive, having witnessed the sports greatness of their older brothers.

The current Ateneo Eaglets, proud back-to-back champions, must have so inspired their younger brothers that these youngsters are eager to follow the footsteps of the likes of Rich Alvarez, Wesley Gonzales, Larry Fonacier, Jai Reyes and Carlo Medina. Just recently, these youngsters won both this year’s national–yes, nationwide– pasarelle and the Small Basketeers Program (SBP) championships. And many of the pasarelle team members have moved on to the junior varsity team. Looks like the Eaglets’ victorious tradition is in safe hands.

The author was a varsity athlete inducted into the Ateneo Sports Hall of Fame in 2000. He is the outgoing chairman of the Ateneo High School Parents Council