The UAAP Finals Experience and Why You Shouldn’t Miss It

Five years is long enough. The FEU Tamaraws have been starving to tear the gold away from Ateneo’s clawed grasp, and they just came too close last year. Almost tasting the succulent but elusive crown, practically salivating, the Morayta cagers are far too famished not to give everything they’ve got, and more.

I was a freshman when the former King Tamaraw, Arwind Santos, led FEU to its 19^th title. Like any geeky freshman, my singular goal was to finish my first sem with flying colors. I had no interest in school organizations, even FEU Advocate, and much less interest in UAAP’s basketball. I did care about volleyball though, I was an avid Shakey’s V League fan and it was a post-Michelle Carolino season back then. Until a classmate, who has a future in sales, did a hard sell and got me to buy a ticket for Game 2 Finals against the De La Salle University’s Archers.

And it was a very exciting, exhilarating and, as I have learned eventually, elusive experience.

For some Tamaraws, they consider me lucky to experience a championship within my four-year stay in FEU. It’s like one of the checklists of being enrolled in a UAAP school, experience a championship year.

Since then, I have always wanted to go to Araneta and support my alma mater, but the realities of being a student nurse made Araneta a distant luxury. Blame me for being seemingly suicidal; I took the FEU Advocate exam, qualified, only to shave off more hours from a regular day. As I took the publication’s role seriously, perhaps more seriously than my own studies, I needed either a Saturday or a Sunday to rest and survive the coming week, pulling me further away from Araneta.

Classmates would have the idea that being in the publication meant required presence during the UAAP games. But I was not a Sports writer, I was under the Features section, which meant a handful of wanted, and unwanted, second-hand information from photographers and writers who cover games. I forgot who, but an Advocate batchmate (meaning we got in at the same time) once did a play-by-play account of a game. I blocked the words and an exceptional game analysis, from a fresh student journalist, not because I wasn’t interested but because the level of enthusiasm is intoxicating, and it was excruciating for me to listen when I wanted to be there myself.

Fast forward five years, and I found myself nostalgic of FEU’s Game 2 against La Salle. This time, I wasn’t in general admission (sounds like being admitted at the hospital), I was at the lowerbox beside another Advocate batchmate, a former Sports Editor, during the recent, controversial FEU vs. La Salle game.

And I took in everything that my senses fed me.

The Tamaraws’ territory has greatly improved we don’t just occupy gen ad to a gold-spotted lowerbox anymore. The horde has marked patron seating as part of their territory. Students wear their school colors with pride, and ‘just-in-case-FEU-loses-I-won’t-be-associated-with-the-school’ type of shirts are close to extinction.

Triggered by ugly game officiating (trying to control myself here), the Tamaraws were engaged in high-pitched verbal brawls against, well.. everyone else. My friend was acting like she’s not going to need her voice to answer calls later. She was standing and pointing to people on the court like she was the team coach. (I was ticked off by the officiating, not the La Salle's players per se)

As Cawaling was injudiciously sent off by an infuriating referee, my friend, and probably like other girls of our horde, acted like they were Cawaling’s girlfriend in anger. Others were screaming as if part of an activist movement, the picture only lacks placards and slogans with ‘Justice for Cawaling’.

As the horde erupted with contempt against a presumed orchestration of callouts, the team walking out after the first half, the Tamaraws still emerged victorious, crushing the Archers’ dream of making it to the Finals. Now, FEU is closer than ever to bringing the gold back where it might’ve, or should’ve, been since last year.

And we’re not going to miss it.

As early as the game’s conclusion, we already made arrangements on how to get our tickets for Game One. Two or three former Advocate staffers, and two current members, lined up for the tickets at FEU, reaching the end of the line only meant lining up again to buy another ticket until they had enough tickets for the number of people we hoarded to watch the game.  Eventually, the cashier got to know them, and wondered when they would stop lining up. They ended up making friends with the cashiers, which is a great achievement, I may say, since I’ve heard and experienced cashiers’ ire when doing transactions.

Like any telenovela, it is always a must to watch it until the end. We all expect a happy ending for the Tamaraws. Which is the same for other Tamaraw supporters who did not study in FEU at all, they are devotees by mere UAAP fanaticism. We are this year’s main protagonist, tayo ang bida, amidst a league of heroes.

UAAP is where heroes are made, but I guess for us Tamaraws, our heroes are made in Morayta, and UAAP is just one of their battlegrounds.

See you at the Coliseum!