Former college teammates De Jesus, Pascua face off in UAAP Finals

The narrative in the UAAP Season 80 Finals duel between De La Salle and Far Eastern University in the women’s volleyball tournaments just got another chapter.

The championship series between two of the most successful UAAP programs won’t just be for the glory but for the pride of the two teams’ head coaches, who were once teammates, as well.

FEU head coach George Pascua and La Salle mentor Ramil De Jesus once teamed up for the Tamaraws during the early 90s, and now their career paths have intertwined more than 20 years since they’ve called each other teammates.

“George has done a good job with his team and he’s really a very hard working person,” said De Jesus of his former teammate Sunday at Mall of Asia Arena.

Pascua said he spent just one year being teammates with De Jesus in FEU and that was when the Tamaraws won the Season 54 title.

De Jesus was an opposite hitter for FEU while Pascua was the middle blocker.

The two had a friendly chat with one another during the Final Four game between Ateneo and FEU in the men’s tournament.

Pascua said they didn’t talk about their respective assignments in the semifinals, and all they did was joke around while reminiscing about their playing days.

“We were just joking around, and thinking of the time when we still played at UP [University of the Philippines] wherein we can’t even fill up a row in the bleachers and the roof leaks when it rains,” said Pascua in Filipino Saturday. “But now, you can look at this, thousands of people are already watching the games.”

Pascua added that De Jesus rebuffed his claim that they weren’t able to take part in the time when volleyball boomed into one of the most watched sport in the country.

“He told me that we were still part of the sport when it became this big, although we made a different kind of contribution,” said Pascua.