BRINGING back brisk, gritty and purely amateur brand of basketball, the National Athletics Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities starts its 21st season on Oct. 23 at the Astrodome.
NAASCU, which has carved its own niche among school leagues, will start the season with basketball action but will also feature volleyball, beach volleyball, track and field, table tennis, taekwondo, badminton, chess, billiards and cheering competitions.
“Our league is mandated to help sports developments,” said NAASCU president Dr. Ernesto Jay Adalem in yesterday’s Philippine Sportswriters Association Forum at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex. “We promote amateurism and avoid commercialization among our young athletes.”
The league has a large platform to accomplish those goals as the 10 member teams have between 170,000 to 200,000 student-population.
Adalem noted that in a previous opening rite before the pandemic, the league managed to gather more than 15,000 spectators.
The 10 member schools are St. Clare College of Caloocan, New Era University, Enderun Colleges, Our Lady of Fatima University, AMA University, Philippine Christian University, Manuel L. Quezon University, City University of Pasay, Holy Angel University and University of Makati.
St. Clare starts its title defense of the basketball championship against NEU in the first game shortly after the 8 a.m. opening ceremony.
CUP battles Umak in the second game; PCU squares off with HAU in the third; MLQU locks horns with AMA in the fourth; before Enderun collides with OLFU in the fifth game.
The new season will also mark the return of the Juniors and Women’s Divisions that were last played in 2019. The Saint Clare Junior Saints and Enderun Lady Titans are the defending champions.
“I think next year will be an even bigger participation,” said Adalem in the public sports program backed by San Miguel Corp., Philippine Sports Commission, Milo, Philippine Olympic Committee, and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.
