Despite its foreign roots, basketball will always have a special place in the hearts of the Filipino people. With courts in every single barangay and parents naming their kids after Michael Jordan and even Filipino legends like Johnny Abarientos, one can conclude that basketball has become an important part of Filipino life. Along with this, Filipinos, especially Lasallians too, fell in love with the brand most commonly associated with the game itself: Nike.
Nike may be first and foremost a brand, but its impact on the game itself has made basketball transcend borders. From Air Jordans to Nike Flywire, not only do you hear players hoping to play in the biggest of stages, but they also want to “be like Mike”.
Though they’ve always been a presence in one way or another, never has Nike been an active sponsor of DLSU until the last three years, specifically its Men’s and Women’s basketball teams. Starting in 2010, Nike began appearing on the team jerseys a year after Ateneo and FEU began sporting the brand in the 72nd season of the UAAP. The following year, Nike came out with school shirts that carried the image of the mascots of each of the schools they served as the main sponsors of. For FEU and Ateneo, their respective school shirts had images of the Tamaraw and the Eagle. For DLSU, it was the Green Archer in his shooting form, staring down at whoever was staring down at him. What made DLSU’s design unique was that it gave the shirt, and perhaps the bearer, a more intimidating aura, even if it’s the boyish Thomas Torres sporting it on the court.
This year, the Oregon-based brand came out with a green shirt with the “Rektikano” cheer emblazoned on the chest with the “R” shaped in such a way that it resembled a bow with the remaining letters serving as its arrow. A perfect complement to one of the Animo squad’s signature cheers, the battle cry itself is now immortalized in a shirt all thanks to “The Swoosh”. Recently, when Nike released Ateneo’s “One Big Fight” shirt, they also released the “Animo La Salle” shirt that came out just in time before the first La Salle – Ateneo match this UAAP season. During the game itself, the jam-packed MOA Arena was not only ringing with “Animo La Salle” and “One Big Fight”, but full of blue and green shirts with the cheers immortalized in them.
“Of course more people will buy those [shirts] from Nike kasi Nike’s an ‘established’ brand,” says Hale Berry De Vera (II – AE-BSA), a project head of one of EconOrg DLSU’s recent shirt selling activities. “Given that, less people will buy our DLSU shirts.”
One thing that Nike has also been able to provide Lasallians is a replica of the jerseys worn by the UAAP players themselves. It’s the closest to the real thing as they can get, with only the numbers, names, and the other sponsors that surround the jersey missing. Now, as the Lasallian faithful cheer on their team, the sea of green will not only be dotted with the shirts that were bought from SJ walk, but also the Nike products emblazoned with “Rektikano” and “Animo La Salle”, as well as the replica jerseys that have given fans, and the players themselves, a higher sense of school pride.
For one to taste the true feeling of wearing Nike gear back then, one had to be in the professional ranks. The NBA has players like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant who have endorsement deals with Nike. In the PBA, The San Mig Coffee Mixers, who were at that time the Purefoods TJ Giants, were sponsored by Nike and at the same time, had one of the most polarizing figures in Philippine basketball: Alvin Patrimonio. Known as “The Captain”, he too was an endorser of Nike, sporting the Air Jordans whenever he would take the court. Before the emergence of Nike in the local UAAP, the US NCAA would be a popular venue for institutions to have Nike on their chests, with the likes of Kentucky and Duke not only parading talented line-ups, but world class apparel as well. Now that the likes of Ateneo, FEU and La Salle are finally donning the swoosh, truly the love between Filipinos and basketball is complete.
“I’ve never been sponsored before [even in Minnesota] and I really love Nike,” says Green Archer rookie Jason Perkins. “Their gear’s nice and I really like playing in them. It’s an honor to have Nike on my jersey.”
