Ateneo Blue Eagles

When Ateneo started to participate in intercollegiate sports in 1914, its varsity basketball teams were simply referred to by the school community as the Ateneo Seniors and Ateneo Juniors. They were later dubbed the Blue and Whites by the sports press in the early 1920s when Ateneo joined sports leagues. When Ateneo adopted the Eagle as its mascot in 1938, the college team was given a new name: Blue Eagles. The Ateneo Blue Eagles are sometimes called the Hail Mary Quintet by the sports press. This moniker was given to the Blue Eagles in 1926 when sports press noticed that the team would pray the Hail Mary (as the school’s patroness is the Immaculate Conception) during game time-outs and would win by the skin of their teeth.[1][2]

The first women's varsity basketball team was formed in 1974. It joined the league called Women's National Collegiate Athletic Association (WNCAA) and was named the Blue Eaglettes. This was later changed to Lady Eagles when they transferred to the UAAP. No written article has been found to date to explain why and to provide the exact year this name change happened.[3][4][5][6][7]

Ateneo is one of the four UAAP member schools that participate in all of the fifteen sporting events of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines. Since the Eagle is the mascot of all the varsity teams participating in these sporting events all of them are called Blue Eagles.[8] However, the Guidon which is the school's official student publications have given them specific names to differentiate them when news about their games are reported. They are as follows:

Ateneo has long been involved in intercollegiate sports dating back to 1914. It was a pioneer in Philippine collegiate sports. Ateneo was the first Philippine school to adopt a mascot, and was also the first school to field an organized cheering squad with cheerleaders which was later followed by another first when it introduced a Pep Band to augment the cheerleaders during games.[3][4][5][9]

The choice of an eagle as school mascot holds iconic significance. Conferred with the title "the King", the Blue Eagle is a reference to the "high-flying" Ateneo varsity teams which would "swoop down on the foe and sweep up the fields away" as a dominating force in the field of sports. Furthermore, there is some mythological significance to the eagle as a symbol of power.[5]

The school used to have live eagles as pets in the former Padre Faura campus and later on at the Grade School campus in Loyola Heights. A live eagle would lead the men's varsity basketball team at the start of a game in the NCAA as the team enters the basketball court for their warm-up with the school Band playing the fight song, "Blue Eagle – The King".[5]

Blue and White, being the colors of the school's patroness, the Blessed Virgin Mary, were chosen as the school's colors. Thus blue and white are the colors of the uniforms of the varsity teams. Most of the school songs, yells and cheers have the words blue and white.

The Ateneo de Manila University is a member of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines, the premiere sports league in the country. It fields teams in all fifteen sporting events of the league. Ateneo was a founding member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which was established in 1924. It left the NCAA in 1978 due to the league-wide violence prevalent at the time, and then joined the UAAP in the same year.[10]

Aside from the UAAP, the Ateneo Blue Eagles also participates during the UAAP preseason in other sports leagues/tournaments such as the Fil-Oil Flying V Preseason Cup, SMART City Hoops Summer Classic, Breakdown Basketball Invitationals, Philippine Collegiate Championship League (PCCL), Premier Volleyball League, Rizal Football Association (RIFA).

Rivals
The Blue Eagles have had several rivalries throughout the years. Before the NCAA was founded and into the early years after its foundation (1924), Ateneo's fiercest basketball rivals were the UP Fighting Maroons (then known as the Maroon and Greens).[4][11] Ateneo won its first NCAA seniors basketball title in 1928 while the San Beda Red Lions won their first in 1927, and the two went on to develop a rivalry during the 1930s that lasted up to the 1970s.

While the Ateneo-San Beda rivalry was ongoing, the seed for a future rivalry was planted after an Ateneo loss to La Salle in the championship game of NCAA season 16 (1939–40). Games between Ateneo and La Salle in the NCAA were always hotly contested but not yet tagged by the sportswriters as a rivalry. When Ateneo and La Salle transferred to the UAAP, San Beda was left in the NCAA. Ateneo and La Salle continued their hotly contested games into the UAAP and the sports press started to write about a rivalry.[11] The basketball games between the Blue Eagles and the Green Archers are the most anticipated matches in every UAAP season.

Records
UAAP and NCAA
The late Fr. Edgar A. Martin, S.J., Ateneo's college athletic moderator in the 1950s and 1960s, once said that "basketball brings glory to Ateneo". The student-athletes of Ateneo share in this belief.[12] As of the year 2019, Ateneo has 57 combined NCAA (25) and UAAP (32) basketball titles, which include championships won in men's, women's, juniors' and midgets' divisions. This is more than the total number of combined titles in men's, women's, and juniors' divisions held by the University of Santo Tomas, which has 42 (40 UAAP and 2 NCAA), San Beda College, which has 45 NCAA titles, Far Eastern University which has 41 titles (40 UAAP titles and 1 NCAA title), Colegio de San Juan de Letran with 29 NCAA titles, De La Salle University, which has 27 (11 in the NCAA and 16 in the UAAP), and Mapúa Institute of Technology with 29 NCAA titles.

In men's basketball, the Ateneo Blue Eagles have won 24 titles as of 2018, 14 in the NCAA and 10 in the UAAP. The Lady Eagles have won two UAAP titles.

The Blue Eagles made fifteen trips to the UAAP Finals, and the Lady Eagles had five trips.

In addition to the NCAA and UAAP championships, recent victories of the Blue Eagles include the back-to-back titles (2008 and 2009), the 2011 and 2014 championship in the annual Philippine University Games, the championship of the Fr. Martin Summer Cup in 2006, 2010 and 2012, and the 2008 Nike Summer League. The Blue Eagles also won championship in the Filoil Flying V Preseason Cup in 2011 and 2018. These were won since participating in 2007. In 2018, the Blue Eagles participated in the SMART City Hoops / 1st Collegiate Summer Classic Tournament and the Breakdown Basketball Invitationals where they won the championships.

At the national level, the Blue Eagles won the title of the 2007 Collegiate Champions League, and its successor, the Philippine Collegiate Champions League (PCCL) in 2009, 2010, 2018 and 2019.

The Blue Eagles also competed at the 2018 William Jones Cup,[13] an international tournament in Taiwan for both club and national teams.

Year – Champions

• 2005 – Lady Eagles – National Students Basketball Championships / Home and Away Invitational League
• 2006 – Blue Eagles – Fr. Martin Summer Cup
• 2007 – Blue Eagles – Collegiate Champions League
• 2008 – Blue Eagles – Philippine University Games / Nike Summer League
• 2009 – Blue Eagles – Philippine University Games / Philippine Collegiate Champions League
• 2010 – Blue Eagles – Fr. Martin Summer Cup / Philippine Collegiate Champions League
• 2011 – Blue Eagles – Philippine University Games / Filoil Flying V Preseason Cup

• Danny Francisco
• Jayvee Gayoso
• Alex Araneta

Ateneo won the UAAP Season 81 3x3 Basketball tournament on its second and final year as a demonstration sport before it became an official sport in UAAP Season 82.[14][15]

The Ateneo Volleyball Program enjoyed a modest success in the NCAA, having won a total of nine championships during a ten-year period from 1967 to 1976. The men's team had two titles and one from the women's, while the juniors team had won six titles. Ateneo dominated NCAA volleyball in the mid-1970s. In the UAAP, Ateneo has won five championships so far since transferring from the NCAA in 1978. These titles were won by the Lady Eagle Spikers in Season 76 (2013–14) and Season 77 (2014–15) and by the Blue Eagle Spikers in Season 77 (2014–15), Season 78 (2015–16) and Season 79 (2016–17), finally ending a title drought of more than 30 years in UAAP volleyball.

The men's volleyball team were back-to-back champions in NCAA Seasons 51 and 52, and were 3-peat champions in UAAP Seasons 77 to 79. The Blue Eagles were also able to achieve a perfect season in the UAAP Season 79 men's volleyball tournament.[17]

• Marck Jesus P. Espejo
• Ish Polvorosa

• Alyssa Valdez
• Bea De Leon
• Maddie Madayag
• Kat Tolentino
• Dennise Lazaro
• Jia Morado
• Amy Ahomiro
• Fille Cainglet
• Dzi Gervacio
• Gretchen Ho
• Jamenea Ferrer
• Deanna Wong
• Charo Soriano

The Ateneo varsity football teams have won a total 19 championships, 9 in the NCAA and 10 in the UAAP. In the NCAA, the seniors have won 6 titles. The Blue Booters were the first to win a football championship in the NCAA when they won the title on the maiden season of the NCAA in 1924. They also won their first back-to-back (1953 and 1954) championship in the NCAA. In the UAAP, the seniors (men) have won 8 titles. The Blue Booters were three-peat champions after winning in Seasons 2003–04, 2004–05 and 2005–06, a record that still holds today. Football was introduced in the UAAP Juniors Division as a demonstration sport in season 70 (2007–08) and declared a regular sport in season 72 (2009–10)

Football Championships

Men's Division

• Virgilio "Baby" Dalupan
• Luis "Moro" Lorenzo
• Edgardo "Ed" Ocampo

• Ambrosio "Paddy" Padilla

• Laura Lehmann