Blue and red clash again

Part Of The Game
Tessa Jazmines

JUST think. Now that San Beda has neatly tucked away the NCAA championship trophy in the hallowed halls of Mendiola; and if Ateneo goes on to win the UAAP crown today or on Monday, the two champion teams will meet in the Champions League and will be able to renew a fierce, ancient battle.
           
It’s true what the wags say. The real rivalry seethes between Red and Blue. Not Blue and Green. It was San Beda and Ateneo who were the North and South Poles of the NCAA back in the days of that league’s glamour and glory.
           
I should know. My infatuation with basketball was kindled by the NCAA. I grew up in a house that extolled the exploits of the leading players of that era. My Dad, an avowed sports fan who would stay up all night to listen to the radio broadcasts of our basketball adventures in the Asian Games, the ABC and the Olympics in that bygone era, spoke glowingly of Caloy Loyzaga, Loreto “Bonnie” Carbonell and Cesar Jota who were the reddest, roaringest Lions then.
           
He loved how they tangled with their counterparts from Loyola. The name Frankie Rabat sticks in my mind as the King Eagle of those days, although I don’t recall ever seeing him and his contemporaries in action.

***

San Beda and Ateneo games were like DDay in the basketball world. Mendiola and Loyola were the bastions of basketball power. In the NC of yore, La Salle and Ateneo competed more on the social scene, as La Salle only emerged as an NC basketball power after Ateneo had left the league to join the UAAP in the late 70s.
           
The transfer was the ultimate aftermath of one of the craziest fan rumbles in basketball history which happened during an Ateneo-San Beda NCAA championship match. The game was stopped because the fans went wild and started to hurt each other. The game was replayed a few days later but behind closed doors—no fans, no tickets. And San Beda won. (Yes! That was THE famous last San Beda NCAA title of 1978!)
           
And was it ever so interesting. And historical too! Ateneo’s ’78 line-up was led by Louie Rabat—Frankie Rabat’s own progeny. While San Beda’s pride was led by Lion King Caloy’s own Simba:  Chito Loyzaga. Other players on the Ateneo side, as I remember it, were Steve Watson, Padim Israel and Fritz Gaston. San Beda had Chuck Barreiro, Frankie Lim and JV Yango, among others. Calling the shots for the Lions was another Bedan great: Bonnie Carbonell. Wise Eagle Baby Dalupan was on the other side.

***

But that’s getting ahead of the story. The San Beda-Ateneo NCAA battles raged because not only did their colors make stark contrast with each other. (Red and Blue clash but Blue and Green groove together, like the colors of the sea, agree?) The Red Lions and the Blue Eagles were also the two winningest teams of the NCAA.
           
Championship trophies would just ding-dong back and forth between the two schools for a stretch of time. San Beda amassed 11 NCAA trophies—including the dramatically won Crispulo Zamora Trophy —a special trophy prepared by the NCAA for any team that would win a Grand Slam in the 50s. Ateneo had 14 trophies—mostly won off San Beda—and the most number of back-to-back titles. Strangely, what would always keep the Eagles from winning a Grand Slam was San Beda. The Lions were always the fly in their ointment. The smudge mark on their cheek.
           
Crowd-wise, the Lion-Eagle crowds would put the current day crowds to shame. Yes, including Ateneo-La Salle. Passion for passion and ardor for zeal, the two teams’ followers knew no match. The 1978 rumble is a case in point.

***

But even on a wholly wholesome front, Beda-Ateneo hostilities had a character all their own. For one, the two schools’ cheers were the most original and most alive with magic and mumbo-jumbo. When the San Beda crowd sang “The Red and The White”, the Ateneans would let loose with “Fly High”, the Ateneo song composed by Raul Manglapus.
           
Ateneo’s cries of Fabilioh! would meet with the Bedan’s Indian Yell—a yell composed by the Cuerba Brothers in 1947. Bedans say “The Blue side could not find a match that would overpower the Indian yell.” But all Bedans agree: “ though many claim rights to different cheers and yells in their possession, one thing remains clear : San Beda and Ateneo cheers remain classic and timeless.” (The Bedan, Championship Issue)

***

The same Bedan issue quotes an Atenista from the net who speaks of the “forgotten San Beda-Ateneo rivalry: “I still prefer the spirit of the Beda boys anytime over the La Sallites. Their brand of school spirit was the kind they wore on their chests and flaunted and shouted to the world—which is exactly the kind of fierce loyalty we have in this blue corner of the universe. This is why I say that in spirit, they are our worthier rivals.”
           
“The Lion and the Eagle opposition is one filled with respect and mutual admiration,” say Rufino Lopez III, John Dave Pablo and Emmanuel Mangahas in the Bedan. “There was a time when this rivalry brought the best out of each school through a series of healthy competitions in different fields.”

***

I should think so. After their bitter fights in the NCAA, Lions and Eagles learned to live together and fight together in a happy afterlife. In the MICAA—THE leading basketball league of the 50s-60s era—Lions Loyzaga, Carbonell, Eddie Rivera, Orly Castelo, Dading Cuna etc. became the loving teammates of Eagles Ed Ocampo, Dodo Martelino and Bobby Littaua in a team called Yco.
           
Don’t you think it’s time—even for one, brief, shining moment—to see this old rivalry come to life again?