I'm generally indifferent to basketball. The only time the UAAP tweaked my interest was when Wesley Gonzalez, Gec Chia, Epok Quimpo, and Eric Yao were my students. When Rainer Sison was in my class, I didn't even know he was a player. I just though, oh, look, tall guy.
Inspite of myself, though, I find myself following the recent UAAP scandal of falsified academic records with interest. I am no fan of the Green Archers, but, again, inspite of myself, I find myself strangely sympathetic to them on some level. No, I don't condone academic dishonesty. Yes, I think the UAAP hype has risen to an unreasonable extreme. Yes, I think school rivalries have brought out the very worst in all of us, in practically every venue.
The sympathy, though, stems from my own vicarious experience of the pressure that comes when you have no place to go but down. DISCS has an excellent track record in ICT-related contests. Because of this, I find myself worrying, oh, no, what if we come in second this year? I kid our teams that second place is not an option or that we love you anyway but please win. Their jokes, right? But they belie a visceral desire to win and keep winning. To think, I'm not competitive by nature. To think, we don't enjoy the same level of support as the UAAP. Yet I feel the pressure. So take those simple, relatively innocuous sentiments. Plant them in the UAAP's soil rich with money, media attention, adoring fans, and alumni pressure and yes, I can see how they can mutate into something really ugly very quickly.
During the ACM mass last year, Fr. Rene Javellana said that the purpose of competition is to bring out the best in us. Competition is not about beating the enemy, it's about being excellent at something. I can see, though, how the pursuit of excellence can so easily be corrupted into winning at all costs. Fr. Rene's point is we should strive for excellence in so doing have already won.
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If you're wondering why I'm blogging so much today, I'm waiting for my flight and taking advantage of the airport's wi-fi.