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Oral history of the 1986 UP Fighting Maroons championship (Part 1)
When the clock strikes midnight on December 31, it will have been another year of futility for the UP Fighting Maroons. It has been 25 years since the State University won a championship in the UAAP, and with the way things are going, it might take another 25 years before the UP squad wins the big one again.
The year 1986 seems so many lifetimes ago. It was certainly a different era, far removed from today’s commercialized collegiate basketball scene, where the next generation of hoop stars are recruited — some would say coddled — years before they step into a college campus. Back then, the players recruited each other to play for school pride, instead of perks and allowances.
It was a simpler time, but some things never change. The UP Fighting Maroons were contenders for the crown prior to winning the championship, but could not get over the hump, simply because they were a “donut” team missing a center. Enter freshman sensation Benjie Paras. But there was more to the story than meets the eye.
How big a deal was the Fighting Maroons’ championship? The Philippine Daily Inquirer editorial the next morning dealt with the school’s victory. Louie Beltran, then the paper’s editor-in-chief, penned the piece himself. UP has produced Presidents, Chief Justices, Chiefs of Staff, and even Communist and Moro rebel leaders, Beltran wrote, but the school never produced a champion basketball team until the 1986 UP Fighting Maroons. Here is their story in their own words.
Oral history of the 1986 UP Fighting Maroons Championship (Part 1)
Reporting by the Tinig ng Plaridel (UP College of Mass Communication student publication) sports staff.
