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NCAA Season 84 Opening - A Retrospective
Sun, Jun 29, 2008 by JeffO
The 84th season of the NCAA kicked off yesterday with the host school Mapua in charge of the much-ballyhooed opening ceremonies, which reportedly would have included robots and an appearance by Bayani Fernando, who for years nobody knew existed until his recent spate of aggressive projects (documented by a film crew of course) and enveloping the metropolis with gigantic banners adorned with his face and a goofy looking pose reminiscent of armpit sound artists that used to adorn noon time shows in the mid-90s.
Unfortunately, it turned out that there were no robots or even Bayani Fernando for that matter, and we were treated to something else entirely. As such, it became an opening many considered to be inferior to its predecessors.
Tribal dance number: A flood of dancers start things off with the token tribal dance number that's a staple on every opening ceremony for reasons unknown. However this routine seriously lacked loincloth and g-strings (atypical of tribes), an atrocity that would make Lam-ang roll in his grave, so I'm going to give this one a thumbs down.
Motto: The league motto for this year is "Go for 4 at 84" which makes as much sense as "The Cool Cat" and "We don't just lay pipes; we improve lives". A huge step down from "Mighty at 83".
Parade: A disjointed order as the parade of players is usually in the middle of the program, but possibly out of concern to the audience who'd probably be bored to death at the abomination they would bear witness to later, it was bumped early. That said, in this segment there are no losers -- mostly because of the beautiful muses that accompany each team.
Guest Performers: Youtube superstar and Ellen Degeneres Show stand-out Charice Pempengco makes an appearance, prompting me to mute the television which is standard protocol for any Pinoy female singer birit sensation. After she's done, I turn the volume back on only to see Sam Concepcion, her ouster in "Little Big Star" and esteemed innovator of mosquitto-tone singing, complete the double header. It would be difficult to cite which of the two is worst, although both individuals possess the inate ability to incite listeners to reach for the nearest object they could jam in their cochlea and question the existence of a divine being.
Guest Speaker: As mentioned earlier, Bayani Fernando did not show up (he had bigger fish to fry) and instead fielded in his place his daughter, who looked as shellshocked as everyone else. She pulls out a piece of paper and relays to us her dad's message, and in an unintentionally funny moment, the malfunctioning audio worked all of a sudden, providing her sullen recital an awkward background music.
Bathroom Break: An old man brandishing parchment paper approaches the microphone and you know what that means -- 60-minute speech time! As always this entire diatribe could be summarized in two sentences (the tenets of sportsmanship and honor!) and a language far more palatable to athletes, but fuck that! I'm eloquent!
"One Dance"; The Closer: For a minute I thought the team mascots in gigantic stilts were going to dance but to end the show, drummers from all NCAA schools engage in a unified percussion exhibition followed by a prolonged ASAP Mania-style dance routine from their cheerleaders (with Letran and Mapua doing the brunt of it) set to 60s mash-up music.
Sun, Jun 29, 2008 by JeffO
The 84th season of the NCAA kicked off yesterday with the host school Mapua in charge of the much-ballyhooed opening ceremonies, which reportedly would have included robots and an appearance by Bayani Fernando, who for years nobody knew existed until his recent spate of aggressive projects (documented by a film crew of course) and enveloping the metropolis with gigantic banners adorned with his face and a goofy looking pose reminiscent of armpit sound artists that used to adorn noon time shows in the mid-90s.Unfortunately, it turned out that there were no robots or even Bayani Fernando for that matter, and we were treated to something else entirely. As such, it became an opening many considered to be inferior to its predecessors.
Tribal dance number: A flood of dancers start things off with the token tribal dance number that's a staple on every opening ceremony for reasons unknown. However this routine seriously lacked loincloth and g-strings (atypical of tribes), an atrocity that would make Lam-ang roll in his grave, so I'm going to give this one a thumbs down.
Motto: The league motto for this year is "Go for 4 at 84" which makes as much sense as "The Cool Cat" and "We don't just lay pipes; we improve lives". A huge step down from "Mighty at 83".
Parade: A disjointed order as the parade of players is usually in the middle of the program, but possibly out of concern to the audience who'd probably be bored to death at the abomination they would bear witness to later, it was bumped early. That said, in this segment there are no losers -- mostly because of the beautiful muses that accompany each team.
Guest Performers: Youtube superstar and Ellen Degeneres Show stand-out Charice Pempengco makes an appearance, prompting me to mute the television which is standard protocol for any Pinoy female Guest Speaker: As mentioned earlier, Bayani Fernando did not show up (he had bigger fish to fry) and instead fielded in his place his daughter, who looked as shellshocked as everyone else. She pulls out a piece of paper and relays to us her dad's message, and in an unintentionally funny moment, the malfunctioning audio worked all of a sudden, providing her sullen recital an awkward background music.
Bathroom Break: An old man brandishing parchment paper approaches the microphone and you know what that means -- 60-minute speech time! As always this entire diatribe could be summarized in two sentences (the tenets of sportsmanship and honor!) and a language far more palatable to athletes, but fuck that! I'm eloquent!
"One Dance"; The Closer: For a minute I thought the team mascots in gigantic stilts were going to dance but to end the show, drummers from all NCAA schools engage in a unified percussion exhibition followed by a prolonged ASAP Mania-style dance routine from their cheerleaders (with Letran and Mapua doing the brunt of it) set to 60s mash-up music.
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