Friday, September 26, 2008

An excess of sportsmanship

Sometimes it feels like there's just too much sportsmanship between Ateneo and La Salle, believe it or not. That is, there's too many people trying to take the high road and show how mature they can be.

Minutes after Ateneo crushed La Salle yesterday and won the UAAP basketball championship, I was reading some forum and La Salle people are all "good job guys, we lost to a great team!", and Ateneo people respond "kudos to those la sallites who know how to take a loss!". What a way to ruin a rumbling college rivalry with an undercurrent of goodwill. I want more trolling and rage! Bring out the big guns and fireworks guys-- you just won, it's time to rub it in their faces!

Ok ok, civility and respect is important in real life. But if we're gonna get along, there's gotta be a way to channel our natural human bloodlust into something meaningless. Sports is that outlet to let our raw human instincts run wild. Beating the crap out of someone in basketball is our modern metaphor for beating the crap out of them in real life.

That's what makes this picture so awesome. It's been sitting around on my hard drive(s) since 2002, the last time Ateneo won the championship over La Salle. At the close of Game 1 of the finals, after two potentially game-winning buzzer beaters by Mac Mac Cardona are blocked by Larry Fonacier, Wesley Gonzales comes along to complete the tableau:

Wahaha! That's right, take it, bitch!

5 comments:

  1. There's a more recent pic of that over at Technograph (this time with Nonoy Baclao talking down James Mangahas, methinks).

    It just shows how classy Ateneans are, deep inside. ;)

    Animo La Salle!

    P.S. Obliging to your request is fun ;P

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  2. It hasn't been all good sportsmanship. There was a lot of bitterness from Franz Pumaren and Freddie Webb, and there was an opinion column in the Inquirer, I think, that said that Al-Husseini (sp?) was actually refused entry into DLSU for low grades. And so the fur flies.

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  3. BTW, if you want an example of a sore Atenean loser, I offer one example: myself. I'm so used to us topping every programming tilt we ever join that the very concept of coming in second or worse does not exist in my universe. I don't deal with it well.

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  4. Jon: That's the spirit!

    Didith: Indeed, beating other schools in programming contests is fun. :-> One of the nicest things was learning our 8th place finish at the 2005 ICPC edged out La Salle's best team by a hair.

    Oh and the incident with buring DLSU player names at the bonfire... that's just creepy. :|

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  5. LOL. The name-burning spat has got me thinking: "HEY! That's UP-style, not Atenean!"

    Better be wary, your ranks appear to have been infiltrated by flag-burning communist/jihadist types! :P

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