During the 1980s, with Martial Law still felt despite its lifting in 1981 and the assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino, there was no doubt that Filipinos were frustrated. Yet as venting out would result to a possible trip to jail, there was no better place to release one’s frustrations than on the court.
“NCAA games [of La Salle] during my time were intense with certain schools such as Letran,” says alumnus Dany Uson (AB ECM – BSC MKT, ’83).
Back in the day, before the DLSU Green Archers played in the UAAP, they belonged to the NCAA, then considered the premiere league for collegiate sports, especially for the nation’s bona-fide favorite sport, basketball. For the players, it was all about passion and school pride, yet there were times when these emotions went overboard.
A look at the 1980s archives of The LaSallian gives readers a closer look at the events that led to La Salle’s exit from the NCAA. On August 1980, in a heated game against Letran at the Rizal Memorial, emotions and stakes were at an all-time high. The game was never finished as a fight broke out between the DLSU and Letran crowd, with the latter reacting to a non-call that to the eyes of the Lasallian community was very obvious.
“There was an incident wherein one of the Letran players hit Franz Pumaren at the back of his ear without the refs seeing it,” Uson recounts as the cause of all the commotion.
He adds, “However, the students from Letran were the ones who started throwing things [at] the DLSU bench. Player nang DLSU ang na hit sila pa ang nag tapon ng mga gamit sa DLSU. The Letran crowd was really unruly as they heckled and cursed. Their famous chant ‘manalo, matalo gulpi kayo’ reverberated throughout the coliseum.”
He also remembered isolated fist fights in the crowd, which forced the players to return to their dugouts, rendering the game unfinished. “DLSU students and fans were asked to leave the coliseum first but the Letran crowd started to destroy the fence at the GA section that separated the schools. Nakakatakot kasi sigaw nang sigaw sila at panay mura,” he adds.
“When the Letran crowd started to go out of Rizal Memorial, some went to Taft Avenue in front of the carpark (now McDonald’s) beside DLSU and started throwing stones to the cars parked there,” he notes.
The violence that ensued resulted to several meetings with both the NCAA and the Basketball Association of the Philippines. A later 1980 issue of The LaSallian reported that the board decided that Letran would be suspended for the rest of the season, with San Beda threatening to withdraw as well. With all the chaos on and off the court, DLSU decided to withdraw from the NCAA entirely. In the end, the NCAA eventually canceled the 1980 basketball season.
Naturally, such a huge move drew mixed reactions from the Lasallian community, especially the athletes from the other sports. “Generally, DLSU’s withdrawal from the NCAA came as a surprise to many athletes because many of us were unaware of the University’s decision,” Noel Colina, captain of the Track and Field team, said in an interview with The LaSallian on November 1980, noting the disappointment that athletes felt.
“When we withdrew from the NCAA, I thought that it was good because it was getting uncontrollable,” says then Softball team captain Bobby Joaquin. “After watching the basketball game and the previous games, I didn’t like it anymore. If it was going to be like that, which I think it’s going to be, then wala na, sira na.”
With the NCAA closing its doors, DLSU set its sights on another league, the UAAP, the same league Ateneo left the NCAA for in 1978. In Rex Torrecampo’s blog Life So Mundane, he mentioned that back in the 80s, the NCAA was the “glamor” league whereas the UAAP was simply the other league.
“Some of the members of the team feel that it’s good that we’re out and some feel bad because of the prestige of the NCAA – the prestige that was there since the beginning of the NCAA,” says Christian Joseph, a member of the 1980 DLSU swimming team.
DLSU’s entry into the UAAP though wasn’t as smooth as they thought it would be as two of its fiercest rivals, UST and Ateneo, opposed their entry. Three years after terminating their affiliation with the NCAA, the Green Archers were busy competing in other tournaments to bide their time. They won the National Open in April 1983 as well as the Philippine Amateur Basketball League Championship (PABL) in June of the same year, with the latter victory steered by legendary coach Ron Jacobs. Eventually in 1986, DLSU was officially welcomed as the UAAP’s eighth member school.
The increased violence this season has definitely brought back memories of the rough NCAA days, but as the scuffles have been pacified before it could even escalate, the one thing that sets the UAAP apart from the NCAA back then is that when the final buzzer sounds, both sides become friends again.
“[The] UAAP is definitely great for DLSU and the fans as well,” Uson notes, adding that he has watched Ateneo-La Salle games without feeling intimidated. “I can line up with the Atenean crowd to buy food and never feel that they will gang up on you. Unlike our time in NCAA, [we] don’t even dare buy food and line up with the competitors’ crowd or you will be cursed or intimidated.”
