I didn't tinker with the tune. I was forced to improvise (there is a difference). We had no sheet music to follow. None of the upperclassmen from the high school (nor students from the college either) could exactly tell us how that part was exactly played. So I improvised and everyone sort of followed suit. Do you mean to tell me they still play it that way?

I do believe that was me

I am here. Someone emailed me about this post. I am not a pornographer. It is merely sheer coincidence that I shoot some of the photos for FHM.

I would like to stress that I did not tinker with Ateneo go-go's. I was forced to improvise because no one could provide us with sheet music.

wow this forum casts a wide net and news travels fast too. we now have jo avila on here.

anyway, back to cheers...i seem to recall a, for lack of a better term, hymn we used to, er, hum(?) -- no words, just a long winded chant of 'oh'. Peking Man, since you appear to be the resident expert on traditional cheers, can you name that tune?

misterkodaker,

Nice to see you on board. I didn't know you did stuff for FHM. Maybe I should join your shoots someday. Do you need someone to hold up the lights?

Hope that this discussion piques your interest in the band. I thoroughly enjoyed the Ateneo go-go's during our time in school and I hope you can still do the same this time around. I can still hear the song in my mind after all these years. Apologies on the tinkering bit then. What's important to me is that you kept this cheer alive all those years. I hope you can come back to Loyola and help out the younger guys on how this tune works.

And yes, that was probably you doing the Chuck Mangione routine with your sax. You were such a fixture of the band in those days that memories of your performance still resonate 15 years down the road.

Cheers, pare.

the signal to begin "ateneo go and fight" used to be a trumpet. the trumpeter would play half a verse (the "go-oh-oh/and fight" portion of the song) to cue the crowd.

the alternate way to introduce it (and i'm guessing this was to improvise for lack of a trumpet) was to hum oh/oh-OH/OH-oh/oh-oh several times, then lead into ateneo go and fight.

sometimes we would just do the "oh" part without actually getting into the go and fight chant. is this what you were referring to? la salle does a similar thing (WOOOOH - oh-oh-oh/ANIMO LA SALLE!) but i seem to remember a time when the didn't yell "animo la salle."


this seems as good a time as any to start a discussion on the cheer.



ATENEO GO AND FIGHT

Ateneo/Ateneo/Go-oh-oh and FIGHT (repeat as necessary)


WHAT IT HAS GOING FOR IT: in basketball this is traditionally a kiss-off, one last insult for the road. it's based on steam's "Na-na-na-na/Hey-hey-ey/Goodbye", which is a rather nasty breakup song. i do believe the celtics used it in the old garden for games safely in the bag, or for opposing players who had to leave the game with six fouls. ateneo seems to have adopted it as a rally song. it's very useful for when the team isn't playing well, but there's also an element of dread and menace to it, signalling a blue eagle rally to the other crowd. i've heard it many times facing the ateneo bleachers and i'm convinced it's the single cheer the ateneo crowd executes best, because it's simple and strong. of course "simple" doesn't mean "idiot-proof"; people often cheer it wrongly as "ateneo-wo-oh-oh..."

WHY IT'S OUT OF FASHION: lots of new short cheers in the babble repertoire that also require endless repetition.

WHY IT MIGHT COME BACK: uh, because the blue eagles keep falling behind by double digits? hope this isn't the ultimate reason, ha ha. it's a good solid ateneo cheer.

you are spot on. i was just about to say lasalle has (or used to have) its own version. ours was slower though. furthermore, like you, i don't recall an 'animo lasalle' in that version as well. good job!

hey misterkodaker, glad to have you on board! no worries, i was just ranting, pay no mind :-). but i did mean it when i said it was great of you to be belting stuff out solo in empty stadiums when no one else seemed to care.

Misterkodaker,

Now that you're here, could we also request for Major Tom Lupton, Hec Garde and Ed "Nazi-Jews Society" Batalla and have a reunion of that crazy Ateneo Band?

I remember there was a time that we had a bit of fun in Loyola Gym. We were in the bleachers and I decided to play the sax solo from Spandau's "True" (how 80's). I went up to the topmost portion of the bleachers and started playing in front of one of the large ventilation vans (how very 80's MTV). I was surprised that someone back in HS still remembered that little stunt when we were already seniors in college (although he didn't know that it was me back then).

yep. those meaningless MMBL afternoons with ateneo team B or something. a reserve ateneo high school squad getting its butt kicked by feu and johnny abarrientos. those were the days dude.

Misterkodaker, welcome! Glad to have a renowned band player on board. Did you get a copy of my PM to Yungha. Could you help out? Pls PM or email me. Thanks.

Dude, you are an institution. No one could have missed you in college, with your sax and your camera equipment. I remember when Sam was courting Trina, Sam was known as "Jo's brother" being that your band exploits seemed to have eclipsed his athletic feats for the track team...

mart didnt attend ateneo high. baka ibang tao yan.

no, he attended another MMBL member school. that's when he encountered misterkodaker's antics at the tournament. i think that's what misterkodaker is referring to. right?

misterkodaker,

Whatever happened to your sax? I hope you didn't trade it in for a camera. Hope you still can do the sax solo on "True." I remember Mart reminiscing about that in the Guidon room once. I think he was impressed!

Here's to seeing you leading the band again.

Cheers!

Do you meant that I've been living with useless mental angst all these years? I used to gripe that people always compartamentalized me as being "Sam's brother". I didn't know that people also labeled him as being "Jo's brother".

I can now die a happy man

The saxophone is safe and sound in my parent's residence in Tiaong. I haven't played in several years. My wife has never ever heard me play and she was surprised to find out that I knew how to play after being married for a couple of years.

But honestly, and I've mentioned this in a PM, I didn't like it when alumni would drop by and tell us how we should cheer and how we should emulate their zeal for cheering.

I didn't like it back then and I'm not going to make the same mistake now.

If the band is going to be revived to include the brass section then the current students must want it (and support from the admi wouldn't hurt either).l

Uhhhmmm...no. Sorry dude. You can't die just yet. If you haven't noticed, we have a crapload of alums pining for the BBB Band to take some instruction on how the old Ateneo tunes, go from you. (Peking's rant excepted )

Having said that, your angst is misplaced. Sam, (beloved as he is), and you, are legends in each your own rights. Sure Sam can fly, but I doubt whether he can claim the company of gorgeous FHM women just as effortlessly as you. (Note: Please post when you get to shoot Cindy Kurleto or Andrea del Rosario. If Mav gets to hold the lights, I get to apply the oil on the models, deal?) I will make sure Mart is informed of the sked so he can come too

And oh, if and when Virenque ever takes me up on my offer to ride, perhaps you can show him how you used to attack Antipolo...

misterkodaker,

Yeah, I can sympathize with you. Though alumni involvement was great, sometimes it would be too much and it would come out of your ears. But, even when I was about to lose patience, I always thought it was a great thing that these old men would still care enough about the school and its traditions to take time off and bother me and made sure that I was doing the right thing. It was the old ritual of the passing of the torch, I guess.

In this case, as the owner of the legendary saxophone, you have the burden of passing the torch to the next generation of Ateneans. I am pretty sure that they wouldn't mind your presence -- if only to teach them. Just give them the basics and let them run off and do with the knowledge whatever they want. That's the thing with passing knowledge to the next generation, you can only impart what you know to them. What they do with that knowledge is entirely up to them.

I hope that the current Babble is up to speed on this discussion so we can get the necessary Babble/Band and admin involvement to make this project a reality.

So, I hope you get that old sax from Tiaong and dust it off. Strike up the band!


Giant,

Do you mind switching roles with me? Ako na 'yung oil. Ikaw na 'yung sa ilaw. Mart can rewind the film!

Mav,

Since you are still in that state of "single-blessedness", I will defer to you on that one. Th-131 may not have taught me much, but I do remember Fr. Candelaria speaking of the wisdom of playing the field before taking the plunge...Well my friend, the field AND the oil, are yours for the taking. (Just remember that these are not mutually exclusive, ok?)

Would you trust Mart with the film? Might we not end up with our version of the DLSU Scandal video?

Best.

PS- Like the self-deprecating avatar?

uaap season 1996 - BBB president was Ivan Claudio, that was my last season with the Babble and the Last ALL-MALE Battalion. The year after they tried with girls but everybody(BBB males) quit, leaving the girls on their own, evetualy they also quit and the BBB returned. the year fater that, girls tried out for the BBB (not cheerdancers) and i think 1 made it in. i dont know her name though but I was there in BELL field during tryouts.

I used to attend NCAA games in the 70's and I never heard this particular chant from La Salle. I used to hear this chant from San Beda though. Then, after the WooHooHooo part, they would shout "Go San Beda! Fight!" It was used as part of the little indian thing that Beda used to do.

In the 80's cheering revival of La Salle, this WooHooHooo chant was then cheered by La Salle with "Animo La Salle" appended to it. I always maintained that La Salle somehow managed to lift the cheer from San Beda. I got into a discussion on this on some other thread with a La Sallite. We just agreed to disagree but I am still not convinced that this was an original La Salle cheer. Even the beat on this cheer is all wrong. La Salle's cheers either have a clap-happy feel to them (ex. ZamaZipaZam) or have a complicated stop-start rhythm (ex. Rektikano, Haydee). Beda's always had this war-whoop indian chant motif in their cheering. The WooHooHooo chant sounds more like a Bedan chant because of all the indian rhythms. Sorry, La Salle, I am still unconvinced.

RuckuS,

I hear you on this. Officially, 1996 was the last year of the all-male Babble. There's no dispute on that and that's on the record. But, interestingly enough, as in every history, there's always a footnote, a little factoid that somehow got lost in time and in the telling.

It was never officially acknowledged, but for at least 1 year in the 80's there were some girls on the Babble. They never were allowed on the court and just helped in the stands. I can't for the life of me recall if they had jackets too but there they were. Sangre Azul was one of two. There was also one other at around 1989 but she was the manager of the Babble. The idea of female Babblers then never caught on and the females disappeared from the roster until 1996.

Gotcha. Should I find a roach?

I agree to the trade. Ano ba usapan? Oil o lotion?

Re: Mart - He might be one of the actors in that La Salle video.

Cheers.

thread-within-a-thread number two (and they just keep coming don't they?): grumpy, nostalgic alumni who want tradition upheld versus innovative band and babble straining against the old material.

as long as the team is winning and the crowd is rocking there can't be much grounds for complaint i guess. the kids will do what suits their preferences or their situation, by choice or by necessity. and the good times will roll.

it's when the team is experiencing bad times (see: 1990s, early 1980s) that people will look to the cheerleaders to provide some sort of reassurance of continuity in the cheering traditions. alumni will always grumble about the team during a losing season, but a well-timed cheer or a hard effort to maintain a "get that ball" chant or a school hymn sung with great dignity, even at the end of a bad game, will soothe any sense of grievance they may have.

but the freedom to choose the repertoire and the cheering style for any given season has a flip side. the cheerleader's and band member's part of this bargain is that no matter how innovative they get during the season, they have the responsibility for knowing the canon. they're custodians of a rich ateneo legacy. that means they must know all the cheers and all the songs and all the tricks of the trade of a well-equipped and well-rehearsed ateneo cheering squad. so if the occasion ever came up for some forgotten song to be resurrected during a game, they'll not only know the song, they'll know how to prep the crowd to cheer it, and they'll know how to lead it. it's the whole package. anything less than that means something is being lost with every passing year.

Thanks, Mav for remembering our efforts to rally the Ateneo Community back then. After a few of us from our batch, i think there were several others thereafter. I think Inah Arcilla was one of them.

I do have a jacket. Actually, it was more of a cardigan. yon kasi uso that time, right??? Now if I can only find it in one of my grandmothers bauls. Hopefully I can still fit in it to wear in one of the games. har, har

RuckuS,

Sadly, you are right that we were not "Officially" recognized. But the recognition of the babble back then and the little participation we contributed made me proud to be part of the BBB, official or not. Thankyouverymuch.

Dude, that would be hilarious. Talk about an "in" joke

Anyway, Mart in the video would be cool. It would be nice seeing him emote for the camera. (FYI: the guy in the video's named "Leo", so if that were Mart, he must have a really bad case of schizophrenia)

On second thought, knowing Mart and his predilection for all things that reek of tradition, the guy in the video is most definitely not him. That dude was certainly of an unconventional sort, and clearly not one given to uhm, shall we say, "proselytizing"...(I can give you a link )

Re: females in the BBB, I have no objections to their presence. In college, I admit that I was a bit saddened by the impending entry of the womenfolk into what was once a sacred bastion of Loyolan machismo; but then, times change. I mean, even such archaic organizations as Kerry and Bush's "Skull & Bones", now accept women. The fact is, women can do just about anything as well as we can. Perhaps, we can all benefit from a change in rigid gender perspectives.

Who knows, right? Maybe 15 years from now when we are all big fat geezers on the downward slide to geriatric existence, we will be led in cheering by a couple of perky co-eds at the halfcourt line, yelling "Fabilioh!" for all they're worth. At that point you can be sure that we would be going into one of those infamous "...noong panahon namin diatribes." Take care buddy.

Btw, your Tito Farley says hello.

Sangre Azul,

I don't think Inah was a member. I do remember her dancing in the 87 season opener though.


Giant,

Inside joke indeed. Forget about the link. No need to see that stuff. Kawawa naman yung mga participants. Regards to the tito.

[OT] RuckuS, nagka-abutan pa pala tayo sa Ateneo. My college scrapbook contains the Guidon photo of the BBB's last all-male performance in the quad. Wala lang. [/OT]

yeah, la salle "lifts" cheers all the time. my cousin was a letran cheerleader in the 70s and their signature cheer of S-J-L-C Arriba Letran was lifted sometime around his tenure. it became D-L-S-U Derecho La Salle. he's still pissed about it.

around the time they were reviving their cheering in the 1980s one of our drum patterns also became the foundation for their "go, la salle, go-go la salle" cheer. we used to do something like boom/boom-boom/boom boom boom boom/(FIGHT!) all the time, as a lead in to "GET THAT BALL" but we had to stop after it got "appropriated" into their sound.

lots of stunts like that from la salle, mostly in subtle stuff like drumbeats, although once in a while the lift is obvious. i'm not going to rehash that argument about halikinu/rektikano because i'm not exactly sure who was first (although i'm pretty damned sure which cheer works better). let's just say that if two students submitted work that similar to each other to an ateneo professor, there would be an investigation.

Think you're right. That's where we got together pala. Must be all the anesthesia clouding my memory.

What attack on Antipolo? That allusion eludes my foggy memory

I was once at Podium and ran into a batchmate who promptly inquired if he could attend one of the FHM babe shoots. My cellphone rang and it was a member of the FHM editorial staff booking me for a shoot the following day.

I asked my batchmate if he wanted to attend and he said yes. I gave him the time and the place and he never showed up (I have not heard from him since then).

But if anyone wants to attend a shoot...

There is a long line and I have new apprentices to train.

Cheers!

Photographing the women is actually a simple task. It's one of the easiest things in the world to do.

But I do enjoy my job so I'll stick with it and someone else will have to apply the oil and handle the lights

Cheers!

K

Dude, word has it that when you came home from the States and your part time stint as a bike messenger, sisiw na umakyat ng Antipolo para sa iyo. Kwento was pinagtatawanan mo raw si Sam on the climbs. How true?

That was the first time that I ever beat Sam on a bike race of any kind Pero medyo dehado ngayon. I haven't ridden a bike in a long time. Work keeps getting in the way.

By the way, I wasn't a part time messenger in the US. It was my day job

The pay was surprsingly good too. I was earning more than my cousin who was already a head teller at 1st Virginia Bank.

Cheers!

I've been mulling the issues regarding the cheering band. I remembered before that the cheering band was in dire need of members who could play any musical instrument. We ended up with having around a dozen members in the cheering band who all played the recorder flute - the logic being that if all those recorder flutes should create enough audible music if they all played together at the same time (NOT! ).

I was with the cheering band from high school until college. I can't recall a time when we ever felt we had enough members. I used to wish that the cheering band was a big band type with a huge horn section.

But there were games where we made do with just a bass drum and a single saxophone (having someone on snare was a bonus in some instances). Does the current band even have a horn section or is it mostly just drums now?

Cheers!

K

man. an all-recorder band. that's just mind-boggling. maybe if we required every audience member to bring a harmonica or a whistle, it might make for an interesting "blue eagle the king" yknow :-).

the balance between snare and bass, loud and soft, solemn and angry, has always been tricky, particulary in the one occasion when the snare drum is undisputably the star - the second verse of the school hymn. i've always found the formula of an a capella "song for mary" first verse and snare drum-accompanied second verse to be uniquely moving, because of the way the sheer power of the band is deliberately held back while the crowd takes over. you can hear the joy or despair in the crowd's voice, depending on how the game went. when the delicate balance is tinkered with (too much bass, not enough snare, band accompaniment with horns whenever there are horns, uninformed wannabes singing "joys and tears" instead of the correct way, which is "joy and tears"). maybe it's because we don't appreciate silence enough. to all you KSP morons shouting "go ateneo" during the quiet parts of the song, i say to you: study zen. or go on silent retreat sometime. it might help.

the cheer that best illustrates the interplay between silence and loudness is "rhumba yell," with its progressively quieter "boom rah rah rah rah rah rah rah" section, fading almost to a whisper, until you get to the next round of "FIGHT A!" when the volume is turned up again and hits you with full force. you appreciate the cheer more when it's done correctly because it means the babble have achieved a high level of rapport with the crowd - the cheerleaders' control is so good that it's possible to get the crowd to cheer silently on demand. contrast this with annoying antics of UST, which seems to cheer loud all the time, or with la salle, which, on the other hand, always cheers soft :-)



Fight ADM Cheer (a.k.a. Rhumba Yell)

Ateneo!
*FIGHT!
Ateneo!
*FIGHT!
Ready, go...
**Fight A (clap clap)
Fiight T (clap clap)
Fight E Fight N
Fight E Fight O (clap clap)
Fight Blue! (clap clap)
Fight White! (clap clap)
The Blue and White will go and fight! (clap clap)
Fight sis, boom bah
Boom rararah ra ra rah! (3x)
Fight A (clap clap)
Fiight T (clap clap)
Fight E Fight N
Fight E Fight O (clap clap)
Go, Go, 'Teneo!


WHAT IT HAS GOING FOR IT: the ultimate test of blue babble skill, in my opinion. the cheer is largely unfamiliar to many in the crowd, there are tricky slowdown and quiet/loud parts, and there is some dispute over whether to rush through certain sections like "fight E fight N fight E fight O" and "the blue and white will go and fight." oldies tend to prefer slow, which a reading of the text seems to support, but cheerleaders in the 80s and 90s executed it blazingly fast. with so many things that could go wrong with this cheer, it should make you stand up and pay attention when it's pulled off smoothly.

WHY IT'S OUT OF FASHION: it's an olympic year so - degree of difficulty

WHY IT MIGHT COME BACK: the cheer obviously has many awkward moments, but i can imagine a slight makeover (as with the modifications to locomotive yell)unleashing rhumba yell's full power.

It was never an all recorder band. But let's just say that they were ALMOST the majority.

I have a pet peeve though when the school hymm is sung during graduation. I can't believe that some graduating seniors actually have to refer to a lyric sheet. They've spent at least four years studying in the Ateneo. You would think they would have at least memorized the lyrics.

LOL! I just remembered one babble tryout that we presided over in the high school. We ask one candidate what cheer he knows and the only cheer that he claimed to know by heart was Blue Eagle Spelling (actually, its the only cheer that most candidates know by heart).

We asked the candidate to give us a sample and he goes: B - L - U - E - E - A - G- L - E! Blue Eagle! Blue Eagle! Blue Eagle Spelling!

(Anyone who didn't get the joke should be shot!)

heh heh. reminds me of a visayan speaking friend who became famous with the babble for blue egol spelling.

yeah i was just clearing that fact. kasi siempre my batch would go down in history as the LAST. Last Bastion of Male Supremacy that was the BBB We tried to "fight the power" but we just couldnt "stick it to the man" well, we put up a good fight, but alas we couldnt stop the inevitable.. those CADS really wanted to perform during halftime! blame it all on that Jollibee(not Nestle yet) Cheerdance competition.

as far as female babblers in the late 80's goes, this was i heard more of a "novelty" sorry for the term. there were obviously a lot of girls who loved the Ateneo as much as anybody(i had lots of female friends who were cheerdancers from AC, Miriam, St. Scho, etc. who went to Ateneo and dreamed of continuing their cheerleader "careers" but sorry, no girl cheerleader vacancies ), and would have loved to go cheer for the school officialy, but since the BBB was STRICTLY a male organization, girls had to find other ways and means to support the team. relegated into an unofficial position of girl babbler. like in HS - Hecklers remember them? BBB na walang jacket just t-shirts?

if that was taken from the Guidon issue, ill show you where i was in formation (i think i was in at least 2 pics - last hurrah, drama diba) well, its a different time now... ika nga nila .. "iba na mga kabataan ngayon!" hahaha college students now would have a hard time imagining an ALL-MALE BBB, much more realize that it used to be like that like forever! until 1997 ... that is.

are you my batchmate?

on male/female cheering - it is undisputed that the old NCAA school cheers were designed around male voices, and that rowdy cheerleading traditions were first developed during a time when many colleges were all-boys. and that, had these cheerleading practices evolved at a time when ateneo was coeducational, the ateneo bleachers would sound very, very different.

during ateneo's early years in the UAAP the babble was in culture shock because conditions in the new league were incredibly different from the NCAA. opposing schools cheered back at you with mostly female voices. they didn't chant stuff like "alvarez, alvarez p*****ina mo!" (as letran fans did to honor paul alvarez of san sebastian). there were no firecrackers in the stands. there were no rumbles. during one UAAP opening day at Araneta, the Ateneo crowd, primed for combat, was totally disarmed when every single cheering section in the coliseum saluted each other school with a feelgood, let's-all-be-friends cheer. FEU would call out "UST Mabuhay!" UST would reciprocate with "UP fight fight fight!" and so on down the line. you could almost see the sneer curling on the ateneo cheerleaders' lips. i do not think they could find it in themselves to salute UE or Adamson with a chirpy greeting across the coliseum. they would rather have picked a fight with Bedans, i think. or said something nasty, like the "public school!" chant directed at UP which marred the 1987 opening day.

that's where the male cheerleading alumni are coming from i think - they consider it part of their job to be loud and combative and more than a little nasty, and not necessarily because they're bad people. i've always suspected that they resisted taking in women so strongly because they believed that the "civilizing" influence of women would take some edge off their game.

There was one memorable game for me against UST that was held at Rizal Coliseum. The heckling on both sides was getting out of hand . I crossed over to the other side and sought out their bandmaster. I told him who he was and explained that it might prove to be the better interest of both schools to stop the heckling. I would control my side and I expected him to reciprocate accordingly. He was gruff but agreed. A trumpet player from UST started heckling just as I was about to leave and I told him "Pare, huwag na."

The UST bandmaster stood up to accost me and told me to mind my own business. He angrily told me I had no right to tell his bandmembers how to act since he had already talked to me and considered the matter closed.

The whole UST side suddenly stood up spoiling for a fight. I assumed this mean that the bandmaster agreed with what I had said but had not agreed to honor the agreement. Go figure that one out!

I went back to Ateneo's side and told all the bandmembers "Pare, murahin ninyo na sila. Bale wala ang pakiusap."

Thank God we won that game. It was nice to be able to be victorious and to gloat.

I know that I should maintained the moral high ground by instructing the cheering band not to heckle. But I felt that the other side wouldn't have appreciated it. So why do something for someone else if it won't be appreciated?

I remember that particular game. Ateneans present at the game were chanting "Public School" at UP to heckle them. Before anyone knew it all the other schools present had turned against Ateneo and started heckling Ateneans for being elitists.

It certainly wasn't our finest moment.

and it did. the BBB now are little more "pa-cute" unlike during the good ole days

If it makes you feel any better, you BBB guys still quite scared me out of my schoolgirl wits in the mid- to late '90s

Girl cheering just doesn't seem to get it done for that "thirst for combat" feeling in Pinoy basketball. I guess that's why other schools like to say Ateneo is "larong mayaman", for the lack of edge or "angas' to our game. Well, suffice it to say at 7-0 I guess I can't argue with the success of our 'larong mayaman." Although I would still take issue with girl cheerleaders.

The again, basketball in general has toned down as Peking himself explained in an earlier post, to be more "network friendly" for TV. Its kind of hard to take girl cheering and the whole fangrrrl phenomenon seriously until you see our pretty boy, honest-to-goodness, bring-home-to-momma players taking the court. Our pretty boys combined with modern media packaging, lethal combination.

The cheering has become more like the adulation given to rock stars or movie idols rather than athletes. There is something so primal about cheering on for one side in an athletic contest, like kingdoms meeting in fields of battle. Who ever heard of the women of old cheering on their side in a battle while shrieking at yon handsome king? There are some things just not done for godsakes.

hey joe

i think female cheerleading in college was inevitable because GALS became a Very Big Deal and the veterans of those competitions had to have somewhere to further their cheering careers after high school. obviously they weren't too well received at first - the two cheering squads weren't seamlessly integrated for years and the women had a separate crew of powerlifters to help them with their stunts. it was obvious from body language that the all-male babble wanted as little to do with them as possible. during the early years of integration the two groups looked like they just bolted their routines onto each other, after having practiced them separately. the men did their thing on this part of the court, the women did their thing, everyone was happy - sorta.

but women in the babble have been the reality for years now, and it looks like everyone has got over the integration trauma. in many ways it's the ultimate corporate culture merger challenge - how to mesh arnie bohol/mhel garrido types with the new breed of female dancer/gymnast type who could probably kick the old school guys' asses in terms of pure atheticism. (in retaliation, old arnie would probably order them to do something completely out of their comfort zones just to prove they have no inhibitions whatsoever - "ligawan mo yung puno" being the classic cheerleader tryout) one hopes for a happy meeting in between, and for the passionate cheering to go on, regardless of gender.

Arnie would have probably said "Ligawan mo ang puno. Isayaw mo ng Rock the Boat habang sumisigaw ka ng Blue Eagle Spelling."

That's what he did to me when I joined the BBB back in HS.

Cheers!