Sunday, July 1, 2007

Ateneo gets athletes ready for UAAP

by Allan Lazaro

Almost 600 athletes from 19 varsity teams were sent off to battle in this year’s Big Blue Eagle Cheer Rally held on June 29 at the College Covered Courts.

With the tagline “Prepare for glory,” this year’s cheer rally was inspired by the recent Hollywood box office hit 300. The movie told the story of the 300 Spartans who held off the Persian army in the Battle of Thermopylae.

“Our athletes this year are like warriors and we’re sending them off to battle for the next season,” explained Collegiate Society of Advertising President Mia Ferrer, one of the event’s organizers.

The athletes will be competing in the 70th season of the University Athletics Association of the Philippines (UAAP) which will be opening on July 7.

All the teams posed ala-300 to the delight of the crowd when they were presented in the Athlete’s March.

Performances from local Ateneo bands Spaceworld, Milano, and Saranggola ni Pepe highlighted the event. Rivermaya guitarist Mike Elgar led the singing of the Song for Mary.

A celebrity shootout and the three-point shootout, meanwhile, replaced the much anticipated basketball exhibition game between the current Blue Eagles team and the Ateneo Legends team.

Ateneo Association of Communication Majors (ACOMM) President Anj Santos said that the exhibition game was scrapped because today’s generation of Ateneans is not very familiar with the alumni members of the Legends team.

The younger alumni such as Enrico Villanueva, Larry Fonacier, and LA Tenorio were also unavailable because they were busy with their Philippine Basketball Association semifinals games.

“It was well attended and it was more interactive than the cheer rallies before because we had events on two sides of the covered courts,” Santos said.

Most freshmen students, however, left early because they also had their Math diagnostic exams later that evening.

“The cheer rally was very entertaining but at the same time a hassle for us freshmen because we had a diagnostic test the same day,” said Communication freshman Guada Tagalog.

3 comments:

Leo Magno said...

Pretty straightforward news item, Allan. You know what could have spiced this up? Photos. Your story is visual, with the posing “ala-300” and the mass of almost 600 students, it could have been better with photos.

Remember, online journalists of today are multimedia reporters, I will tell you Tuesday guys how AFP and other wire reporters and how even we do it sa Inquirer.net. everyone is armed with cameras for video and audio and photos, plus a laptop and a mobile device.

On Tuesday we will go through a minor style items in you story, you will be the one to correct your own story.

Erika, same with Allan, will edit her own story too. Erika, since yours is a feature article, please refer to the comments I made earlier and redo the story, bring the file on Tuesday July 3 and we will refine your articles on class.

Unknown said...

Heya! The article itself was okay, however, i think it could have be improved by interviewing athletes... or the people connected to athletes. After all... it was Cheer Rally for athletes.

La lang. :D just some thoughts

wired4news said...

Thanks for the feedback, Karla. :)