I'M somewhat glad that La Salle won in the PCCL Championship against the Ateneo. While there's nothing more satisfying than Ateneo beating La Salle, I wanted my friends from DLSU to at least experience victory against the Ateneo this year. (Yes, I'm kind that way.)
No excuses, DLSU was clearly the better team. They executed their plays better, and they defended well. As always, the only killjoy in any league was the antics of DLSU Head Coach Franz Pumaren. For the past decade of him coaching the Green Archers, he's made a career of false modesty by making all sorts of pre-game and post-game game statements supposedly explaining why they are always the underdogs.
Here's a typical Pumaren antic:
Before the season/game, he will say that some of his players are injured or that they are not playing a full lineup for whatever reason. If they lose, he will say it was expected and that they never had any hope in beating a team that was stronger than them to begin with. But if they do win, he will gloat by saying his injured/incomplete lineup has beaten a "stronger" opponent. It's so predictable, but annoying nevertheless.
(Come on, Franz, the fact that your team has been in the UAAP finals for most of the time that you are head coach is testament to the fact that your team will never be underdogs. We don't like it, but it's a fact.)
Again, unfortunately, DLSU's victory was tarnished by some of its supporters led by Franz' wife herself shouting racist remarks against Norman Black. This incensed some Ateneo players who looked like they wanted to spew fire at a certain section of the DLSU side. More than my puzzlement over the need to kick a dead horse, I can't understand how stupid certain DLSU fans are to the point of shouting something racist while their own coaching staff has someone who has African-American heritage - Dan Rose.
All team supporters whose team loses a crucial game are prone to tasteless antics, but it seems that DLSU is the only team that has supporters who engage in such antics even when they win. I remember during this year's semifinal match between FEU and DLSU, in the dying seconds with DLSU leading, a dejected Jens Knuttel of FEU was being taunted by two DLSU supporters shouting, "Knuttel! Inutel! bwahahaha!". Knuttel faced them, took out his scapular, pointed at it, and told the two La Sallites, "God bless you."
Wow, that's an act of class that a lot of graduates from supposedly "elite" universities do not possess. I wish Pumaren knows about this story in order to have something to lecture his wife with. But then again, class was never one of Pumaren's strong points.
