AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

BUILDING A HIGH-PERFORMING TEAM:

An Oral History of the ADMU
Lady Eagles Volleyball Team’s
Championship Season 76

Dr. Edna P. Franco, Jowett F. Magsaysay, Wilson Q. Gan

Ateneo De Manila University, PhD in Leadership Studies Program

Abstract

The literature on “high-performing teams” has largely converged around

the distinctive characteristics of such teams. However, there have been
divergent views on how to build high-performing teams. This case study
follows the experience of the Ateneo Women’s Volleyball Team in UAAP
Season 76, as they formed, developed, and eventually transformed into a
high-performing team. In this oral history, nine members of the team, the
team’s head coach, the team’s manager, the university’s athletic director,
and the university’s athletics director for operations trace the story of their
championship-winning season. Several themes emerged from the oral
history, including training on world-class fundamentals, performance
coaching, communication, motivation, positive reinforcement, a focus on
the present, camaraderie, and the elusive condition of flow.

Afterward, when the last ball had been spiked, the last team huddle had broken up, the
final strains of “A Song for Mary” had reverberated around the arena, the few remaining strings
of confetti had fallen, and the ecstatic blue-and-white crowd had been swallowed up by the cool
March night, all that remained were the stories…
The story of extreme swings of emotion, from the wrenching disappointment of losing
the previous season’s championship to the frenzied elation of celebrating an all-conquering
victory in the very next season… The story of a program realizing its first-ever championship
and exploding into the consciousness of an adoring community… The story of athletes being
pushed, and pushing themselves, beyond their limits of strength and endurance… The story of an
enigmatic coach who could be an extreme authoritarian or a benevolent leader – or an
entertaining showman – depending on the situation at hand… The story of leadership at the
junction of Buddhist philosophy and Ignatian spirituality… The story of motivated individuals
pushing themselves up to meet the lofty standards they were committed to, and of a motivated
team passionate about not letting each other down…
All those stories merge into this one, the story of UAAP Women’s Volleyball Season 76,
of the champion Ateneo De Manila University (ADMU) Lady Eagles, in their own words…

Page 1 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

The Storytellers
The contributors to this oral history (name and role in Season 76, and their “nickname” in the
text) are:
Alyssa Valdez (“Alyssa”), Open Spiker, Team Captain
Dennise Lazaro (“Denden”), Libero
Jorella De Jesus (“Ella”), Open Spiker
Amy Ahomiro (“Amy”), Middle Spiker
Jia Morada (“Jia”), Setter
Michelle Morente (“Michelle”), Open & Utility Spiker
Aerieal Patnongon (“Aerieal”), Middle Blocker
Marge Tejada (“Marge”), Middle Blocker
Kim Gequillana (“Kim”), Utility & Open Spiker
Anusorn Bundit (“Coach Tai”), Head Coach
Emmanuel Fernandez (“Em”), Assistant Director for Operations, University Athletics
Tonyboy Liao (“Tonyboy”), Team Manager
Richard Palou (“Ricky”), Director, University Athletics

Page 2 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Prelude: The Lost Championship

The story begins amid tears. On March 6, 2013, in the final set of the final game of
Season 75, ADMU had led defending champion De La Salle University (DLSU) 13-9 in Game 3,
willing themselves to make a comeback. But it was not meant to be. DLSU won the set 25-16 and
with it, a so-called “three-peat” championship. It would be the last stand of the famed Fab Five
– Fille Cainglet, Jem Ferrer, Dzi Gervacio, Gretchen Ho, and A Nacachi – five seniors who had
been expected to carry ADMU to its first volleyball championship. They would graduate without
having won the title. For the team, it was a crushing loss. For many of their hopeful followers, it
seemed like the end of a dream.
Ricky: Tonyboy and I prepared the team for the Shakey's V-League in 2007. He told me,
“Ricky, I can manage your school team.” I agreed, and Tonyboy became our team manager. We
started to build the team. We recruited players. We were able to bring in Roger Gorayeb as coach.
He was a 22-time champion with San Sebastian. We constantly improved the team every year,
but we could not win the championship. The Season 75 team was strong; they reached the Finals
twice. But they couldn't win it.
Tonyboy: In Season 74, we were just happy to have reached the Finals; it was the first
time that Ateneo played in the Finals. In Season 75 we were in the Finals again, and we really
thought we would win already. That was so painful, as we were ahead two sets in Game 1 but we
lost the next six games and La Salle became champion again.
Alyssa: I had already experienced the Finals in my first year, in Season 74. We were
lucky to be there, so that was already an accomplishment. By Season 75, we had the experience,
the knowledge, the skills to win the championship, but we didn't win. So it was so frustrating.
Denden: Coming into Season 75, we were pressured to do better compared with the
previous season. Plus, the Fab Five were all seniors and it would be their last year. That was the
theme of that whole season – pressure. We weren’t having fun. We were too serious, and we felt
frustrated with each loss. There was this one game against FEU. We lost a set and only scored 6
points. It was hard for us to bounce back after a loss like that. We needed to win just one more
set to win Game 1 of the Finals, but we didn’t. That was really hard. After that, we tried to
bounce back in Game 2 but we couldn't.
Ella: It was painful. Everyone expected us to win the championship and we did not
deliver.
Amy: We always started strong. And then we… I don’t know why… we’d take it easy,
and then somehow the other team would somehow catch up and then would surpass us. It was
like a theme. We could not get over the last hump. We wouldn’t really do substitutions. Like, it
would just be Gretchen and Fille, and they’d be really tried. They would be cramping. So I think
a lot of it was actually physical. But I’m sure it was also emotional. But I wasn’t really playing
on the court that time so I’m not really sure what the emotions were like inside the court. But off
the court, it was very frustrating.
Denden: Our seniors had such a great run. From their rookie year, they elevated the
status of Ateneo volleyball. But then they fell short. Personally, I felt bad. I felt that I could not
show my full potential because I was really nervous. I felt the pressure of needing to do my best

Page 3 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

for my seniors. It didn't help that the crowds were so big and the lights of Mall of Asia Arena
were so bright – it was my first time playing under such conditions.
Alyssa: It was sad for our seniors who were graduating without winning a championship.
But then it became a challenge for us who would continue to play in the UAAP, to somehow be
able to win a championship.
Tonyboy: We received another blow when Coach Roger had to go back to his alma
mater, San Sebastian. One day I saw Fr. Jett. He had heard that Coach Roger had resigned. Fr.
Jett told us that, if ever we would get a replacement, we should get a high profile coach.
Fr. Jett: I was of the opinion that organizations win championships. Even if you have the
best players in the world, but you don’t have the right organization, you will not win. And by
organization, I just don’t mean the team, but the whole ecosystem – your University Athletics
Office, your scholarships, your recruitment, everything. If you are disorganized, you won’t win.
And we thought we had mastered that to some extent. Ateneo was winning championships in
different sports. We had the stuff, the championship stuff. For our women’s volleyball team, I
believed that a more positive environment, one that could really guide the players, and develop
all of them, might make a big difference.
Ricky: When Tonyboy said we needed to look for a high-profile coach, I said that, by
then, all the high-profile Filipino coaches were already taken. Tonyboy asked me if it would be
okay if he got somebody from Thailand. I said, “Go ahead and let’s see.”
Tonyboy: I flew to Thailand in search of a coach. In particular, I had in mind Coach Tai.
I had known him since 1993 when he was a center for the their national team. When he retired as
a player, he became part of the coaching pool of the Thailand Team. He was assigned to work in
the grassroots, with young players, that’s why I thought of him right away. But it had been many
years since I had last been in touch with him. Upon arriving in Thailand I first searched for him,
but didn’t immediately locate him. I met up with some volleyball officials, and asked them
where Coach Tai was. They asked me why I was looking for him. I said, “I have a team that I
want his help with.” They said, “Okay, if he says yes, then no problem.” They told me to look for
him in a small restaurant that he had. That’s where I finally found him, and I immediately told
him of our need for a coach. He asked how long I would need him. That was July 2013, and I
said, “Let’s start in August, then try for five months.” He asked me what I wanted him to do. I
said I want the team to be stronger and faster. I told him it was a young team with four rookies.
The seniors, the backbone of the team, had graduated already. He said, “I’ll think about it.” He
was still handling teams in Thailand, and he was concerned about staying away for five months.
Coach Tai: After talking with my officials, I decided to say yes to Tonyboy. But I told
him, “Try me out for one month. If you don’t like what I’m doing, send me home.”
Tonyboy: I thought that was fair, so I said, “Fine.” Then he told me that he could only
start in September, as he had to make preparations first.

Page 4 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Dinner with the New Coach

Come September, the team was ready to meet their new coach, and he, them. The getting-
to-know-you party was held in Solaire Hotel, over buffet dinner. The players had a wide variety
of food choices to enjoy. Their impressions of their new coach, however, were similar, and not
one they found enjoyable…
Alyssa: We met Coach Tai in September 2013, less than two months to go before the
start of Season 76. We thought that, since Coach Roger brought us to the Finals, we would
continue under him. We did not expect to have a new coach, and an international coach at that.
Bea (Faustino) and I had met him earlier during lunch. He was telling us that we would have
three-times-a-day practices. We were shocked to hear this.
Michelle: When we first saw Coach Tai in Solaire, he was not smiling. Our first
impression was, oh my God, he is scary! And then he announced how early we would be running
the next day, and how far and how fast – we all got even more scared.

Marge: Based on his appearance, he looked like he would give us a hard time in training.
I knew that volleyball is a big sport in Thailand, like basketball is in the Philippines, so I
expected that he would be tough.
Ella: When we saw he had a super-straight face. I said, “Oh no, he will be so strict.” He
looked like those coaches in films who give players a hard time. He looked so intimidating that
we lost our appetite.
Aerieal: When we started our dinner, he had not been introduced yet. So we were still
enjoying ourselves. We saw someone just sitting in one corner. We didn’t know he was our new
coach. I was getting another serving of steak, then I noticed him approaching. He said to me,
“Eat many, tomorrow die.” I realized then that he was our coach. And after that comment, how
could I possibly eat?
Denden: Upon arriving at Solaire, when we saw that it would be a buffet dinner, we were
happy – we love to eat! Then we saw Coach Tai, with a poker face, like he really meant business.
We seniors already knew that Thai coaches have “no mercy” when it comes to training. And
when we heard what he wanted us to do the next day, to start our twice-a-day-training – early
morning running and conditioning, then court training in the afternoon – we went from being
happy and excited to feeling that we did not want to wake up the next morning anymore.

Alyssa: When he told us our call time the next morning was 5:45, we said, “Is he serious?”
We were used to training at 5 in the afternoon.
Ella: He described his program after dinner. He even said he felt that he would have a
hard time trying to help us to win. He said we did not look fit, and that we were thin. Driving
home from the dinner, I had a crazy thought of ramming my car so that would not have to come
the next day. Our feeling was that, all of a sudden our lives would change. Schoolwork was
already hard, volleyball was already hard, and now he wanted us to practice three times a day
under his intense program. We feared that we would not be able to survive!

Page 5 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Amy: We were all really apprehensive. And we didn’t really know him. He didn’t speak
English or Tagalog. We had not yet started, and there was already a gap between us. I was
wondering how we were going to achieve chemistry with this new coach.

Tonyboy: When I introduced him to the team over dinner, I told them, “He is a good
coach, but his communication skills in English are limited. He can only speak a few choice
words. So you have to adapt to the way he communicates.”
Ricky: Technically, I could see that Coach Tai was good. My first concern was whether
he could communicate, as he would hardly speak any English at all. I had a hard time
communicating with him at first. But I kept on observing how the girls responded to him.
Fr. Jett: Coach Tai struck me as someone who knew his craft, a master technician and a
tactician. Soon I realized that this is a guy who could inspire people. This is a leader who could
adapt. I thought his heart was in the right place. I thought that, if he could inspire confidence, in
spite of the language barrier, then that would be great.

The New System, the New Philosophy

The team’s first impressions proved to be accurate. With a new coach came a new
regimen and an entirely different philosophy, one founded on training – grueling, exacting,
relentless training. Coach Tai had quickly figured out what he thought the team needed. If he
was right, he would be able to forge a new identity, a new spirit, and a new mindset that could
sustain the team through the demanding volleyball season ahead. If he had miscalculated his
approach, he would end up with a bitter, burned-out team…
Coach Tai: After the dinner, I told Tonyboy. “Your team is a little bit tall. But they are
skinny. They have no muscles. They have no power.”
Tonyboy: I told him, “See how they are in the first training day, then analyze what you
see.” From the first day, he injected the proper training regimen for the team.
Aerieal: The previous season, we would train for a total of three hours. Now we were
going to train for a total of seven or eight hours!
Coach Tai: At first I wanted them to train three times a day. But we agreed to train two
times a day. All the other teams trained once a day. If we trained only once a day, we could not
win. We needed more hours of training. We needed to train more than the others did – more
training, more hours. In the morning, physical training. In the afternoon, basic skills training.
More hours of training…more happy!
Alyssa: In the very first practice session, he explained meditation.
Denden: Yeah, before we did anything, he sat us down. And then he told us to close your
eyes. Clear your mind. Focus on one thing. He wanted us to be calm, so that we could focus on
the training ahead.

Page 6 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Jia: He made us sit and close our eyes for 15 minutes. He wanted us to focus on our
breathing by counting our breaths.
Kim: And we should see a certain color, yellow or white. Not black, which meant you
were thinking of too many things. If we focused on our breathing, the black color would go away.
Denden: We found meditating weird, at first. What were we going to do? We didn’t even
know how to meditate. We were thinking of so many things. So most of us just slept, as it was
still only 5:30 in the morning!

Ella: But after about 15 minutes, he woke us up and explained his system for running
laps. He said, “You have to run three laps of the oval in 5:30 (5 minutes and 30 seconds).” That
pace was too fast! And if we could not make it in time, he would make us run again.
Amy: Yeah. We didn’t really know how fast to run so we just sprinted the whole thing.
To this day, the time we set on that first day is our fastest time. We normally did it in around
5:10. That first day, most of us did it in 4:45. Coach Tai said, “Oh! Very good!” We didn’t want
to disappoint him. But I was, like, “Oh no! He’s going to have expectations, and he’s going be so
let down. We can’t run that fast every day.”

Em: We saw a big difference in training right away. Coach Tai made everything
measurable. He set norms for everything. He tracked down the development of each individual
against certain norms. Other coaches say, “We’ll make you run for ten minutes,” or something
general like that. But he timed and measured every run, and communicated it. He would tell the
player, “Your time before was this, your time now is this.” And he wouldn’t stop until a player
hit the times he had set.

Marge: After running so fast we were so tired, we felt like throwing up. After that first
day, we felt like we didn’t want to go to sleep as we dreaded that morning would come again.
We were so scared of going back to training.
Alyssa: After that first day Coach Tai was complaining. He said that he just wanted to go
back to Thailand because we were too soft, like jelly. He said our legs were not strong. We were
not physically fit at all.
Ella: That first day of training was so crazy. And that would continue for six days a week,
and sometimes he would even make us train on Sundays.

Mission: Mastery of World-Class Fundamentals

Physical conditioning was just half of the training program. The other part was
mastering the basic skills of volleyball. That was something that the players might have thought
they didn’t need, as they had been playing volleyball since grade school. But there was a
difference between “fundamentals” and “world-class fundamentals,” as the ladies would soon
discover. The learning curve would not be theirs alone, however: The Ateneo sports system had
yet to encounter a level of preparation that was as organized and structured, where every detail

Page 7 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

was observed, measured, and evaluated to the Nth degree, and subjected to the necessary
corrective action…
Marge: He said we would change the way we served. All of us had to jump-serve, or
jump-float. It was funny because only a few of us knew how to jump-serve.
Ella: And he wanted us to serve with power and speed.
Coach Tai: In world volleyball competitions, everyone jump-serves. Jump-serve means
attacking. I want their level to be at the level of world volleyball. I taught them everything I
know so they could play at that level.
Michelle: The first time I tried the jump-float style, I could not get the ball over the net.
Coach said, “Just get the ball over the net, and you will be OK. If you cannot do it, you will do
the 10-balls drill.” This was a drill where, playing defense, you had to retrieve 10 straight balls.
One of our teammates said, “Guys, let’s just do the 10 balls instead of serving.” So she did the
10-balls drill. Coach would hit each ball far from the previous one. This was much harder than
serving! So we decided to serve until we could get a ball in. I was the last one to try it. I tried so
many times and failed. But I kept serving. After so many tries I finally got one in.

Denden: Yeah…if you don’t put your service in on the first try, you had to do the 10
balls. If your next serve doesn’t go in, he would add 10 more balls, so the 10-balls drill becomes
a 20-balls drill, and so on. So we faced a clear choice – give up and do the 10 balls or serve until
we got it right. That was the lesson he wanted to teach us: Why give up right away if you could
do it anyway, eventually? You just have to keep on trying and believe that you can do it.

Marge: For him, our form was more important at first than the result. Even before we
were in high school we all played volleyball. Then here comes a new coach telling us that our
form was wrong. Since we were in college already we should have already mastered form. He
made us realize that there was still a lot to learn.
Amy: The actual volleyball training was very different. Well, obviously, volleyball is
played the same way in every country. But every country has a way by which they do things. In
his system, specific people would always stand in the same place. There was more structure. And
he would place chairs on the opposite court, and if you didn’t hit the chairs with your serve, you
wouldn’t leave. Sometimes it took more than an hour to hit the chairs!

Ella: Just the stretching exercises were already different. They ran for so long. He really
took time in each part of the training. He was really into each of us, wanting to correct every
wrong form. He would take care to fix the smallest things. He would be so specific about every
detail.
Denden: The court training was intense and really of high quality. The three to four hours
we spent every afternoon were really maximized. We were doing so much, from stretching all
the way to the last drill.

Michelle: We had more than five drills every afternoon. I would look at my watch, and
after three drills, it would only be 6:00 p.m.!

Page 8 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Amy: Everything was timed. Even a warm-up was timed. If you couldn’t do the time,
then you kept going. Water breaks became literally just water breaks. You just got water, and
then you got back. No sitting down. No chilling. No asking each other, “How was your day?”
Nope. Just get water and just go right back onto the court.

Alyssa: Every day we had to face a new standard. Every day there was a new challenge.
Ella: With Coach Tai, there would be a punishment if you could not perform the drill he
wanted you to do. But somehow you did the drill not because you feared the punishment, but
because you really wanted to accomplish the task.
Denden: If Coach Tai wanted you to do something he would really push you to your
limit. Then he would say, “Can do. Can do. You can… You can do it! So don’t give up.” Have a
positive mindset, always. If you really want to learn, you have to push yourself and he would
help you to get better. He was very motivating. We learned from Sir Tony that in Thailand, he
would handle the Junior National Team. He really liked to teach young players. No matter how
long it took, he would keep pushing. He would never give up on you. That’s why you should not
give up on yourself.

Ella: The difference with Coach Tai is that when he corrected us, he would not make us
feel bad. He would not say, “What you are doing is wrong.” Instead, he would say, “This is the
way to do it.”
Alyssa: There is a better way to do it.
Amy: It seemed like he had a program from Day 1 to the end of the Finals. He explained
to us, “This is how it’s going to be. This week we are new, so it was going to be 70% out of the
100% that I eventually want you guys to be at.” We really felt that he had it all planned out. It’s
not that in previous seasons it wasn’t planned out, but it wasn’t that evident to us.

Aerieal: Before, training was meant as punishment. It wasn’t for us to improve. If you
played badly, the training would be exhausting, but sometimes it made no sense. But with Coach
Tai there was always a purpose. He would spend time coaching us one-on-one – even the
veterans. Even if we were exhausted already, if you weren’t able to do what he asked, he would
not let you stop. You could never tell him: “Coach, I’m very tired already. I need to rest, to take
one day off.” He did not want us to miss even one training session. But after each training
session, no matter how tired you were, you would feel that you had improved. You would have
learned something new. You would feel fulfilled.
Tonyboy: I saw that the girls were really crying from the tough training. What Coach Tai
gave them was the training regimen of the national team of Thailand. So they had a hard time in
the beginning.
Coach Tai: After the first month, I called up Tonyboy, who was abroad. I asked him
when he was returning. I said, “We have to talk, because I think I need more than one month
with the team.” He said, “How about five months?” I said yes.

Page 9 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Tony Boy: With Coach Tai now on board for a longer period, we quickly planned to do
part of the training in Thailand. In previous seasons we brought our teams to Thailand, but we
stopped doing that. Now, we had to do it again, to give them exposure. They would not just face
each other every day like they did in Manila, but they would have to play against other teams,
Thai teams. We trained in the morning and played in the afternoon. We played against the club
team, then against the high school team, and then against the college team. He wanted the
players to experience real volleyball. Because for him – and it might be painful for us to
acknowledge this –Philippine volleyball is played at a much lower level.
Coach Tai: I brought the team to Thailand because I felt they had to improve in every
way. There they had to be strong in everything. First, they had to run four laps in less than six
minutes. Before, everybody was thinking: we cannot do this. But I told them, if they think they
could do it, they would be able to do it. It’s the same with playing the game. If you think you can
win, you will win. Psychology.
Ella: Our last training session there was really hard. First, he made us run. Then he made
us do agility exercises, plyometrics, with lots of jumping. After that we were so tired, and
thought the day was over. Then he suddenly said we would have to run one round in 1:30 when
our normal pace was 1:50 or 2:00 per round. Then he made us run another round. We were really
so exhausted after that. He told us that he knew what he asked for was hard, but he never wanted
us to doubt ourselves. “Nothing is impossible,” he would always say.
Aerieal: The Thailand trip was actually the first time that we started to become
comfortable with him. He was so gracious, looking after our needs. He would bring us food. He
would take us out to eat. He would fetch us from the hotel and bring us back. He took us to the
night market. He also wanted us to enjoy our trip. By that time, we had been training for one
month, so somehow we had gotten used to him anyway.
Tony Boy: Before the start of the UAAP season, I asked Ricky who would be head coach,
as we had contracted Coach Tai as trainer and consultant. I asked if we could have a foreigner as
head coach. Ricky pointed out that Normal Black was an American who had coached our men’s
basketball team, so it would be fine. So we agreed to make Tai the head coach. The only problem
was that, after December when he would return home, he would be gone for three weeks to
coach his own team, the Royal Thailand Youth Volleyball Team. No matter – we now had our
high profile, international head coach.

Page 10 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

The Elimination Round: The Hypothesis Is Tested

December ushered in the start of the elimination round. The team, the school, and the
fans were eager to see what the new system and the new training program would produce
against the first opponent, National University (NU). For the Lady Eagles, Season 76 started the
same way that Season 75 ended – with a straights-sets loss…
Amy: In that first game we were all like deer caught in the headlights, including our
coach, when we stepped out of the dugout. We were overwhelmed by the crowd, the noise, and
the lights. We only had Alyssa, Denden, and Ella coming back as starters from the previous year.
Because I had been injured, I had not played the previous year. I never started in a game before.
We were a really young team, with three rookies starting. During the game it seemed we were
just watching, not really playing. It was too big for us at the time.
Jia: Prior to the UAAP, there was a series of university games. We didn’t join as we were
in Thailand to train. The other UAAP teams were able to gel earlier. They knew what to fix. So
when the season started, we knew it would take us a while to get to know how we played.
Ella: We didn’t really want the season to start yet, because we felt that we could not yet
beat anyone. We felt we weren’t ready yet. Then after losing that first game, some people were
already saying, “Wasn’t Ateneo supposed to have a strong team?”
Alyssa: At that moment, those comments didn’t affect us because we did not expect
anything.
Marge: After we lost the first game, I remember exactly what Coach Tai told us: “No
problem, that's okay.”
Coach Tai: When we lost the first game, I said, “Don't worry. We have to be happy,
happy, happy! This is just the first game. This is not yet the end of the season. So be happy,
happy, happy!
Tony Boy: In the dugout before the game, he kept on saying, “Happy, be happy!” After
the game, he said, “We lost, but don’t worry, be happy!”
Denden: When we started the season, we told each other, “Okay guys, let’s just take it
one game at a time and enjoy every game.” So when we lost the first game against NU, we didn’t
feel bad, as long as we did our best. That’s what Coach said: As long as we did our best, we did
what we practiced, we played as a team and, most important, as long as we had fun, then that
would be enough. When he saw that we were happy on the court, he felt good about that.
Marge: But the day after a loss, you would really feel it because the training would be
harder.
Alyssa: After that first game, Coach Tai may have seen our potential, that we could
probably have a chance, that he felt he could challenge us even more during training. He would
make us work so hard, as that was his way of saying, “Don't surrender. You have to fight more.”
Those who watched us said the effect of our pre-season training was already apparent. We were

Page 11 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

really shocked by observations that we had gotten fitter. We could not see it yet, but they told us
we had changed a lot physically.
Amy: Yeah, when we entered the season, everyone was saying we looked so fit. We
didn’t do weights before. But now we were doing weights three times a week. People said we
looked different. We were very muscular.

After losing the first game, the Lady Eagles won five straight games – against FEU
Adamson, UE, UP, and UST – a winning streak that they did not expect…
Michelle: Winning five straight games - it’s hard to believe it now.
Amy: We began to just play and Coach’s plan started working, started kicking in.
Marge: We would just always think of one game at a time, not to win it, but more of just
the experience of going to another game.
Alyssa: Every game, we were just thinking about playing. We were so focused. Perhaps
it was because we were so intense during training, that in the games we became more relaxed.
Tonyboy: Before the season started I told the team our schedule for the first round. Our
first game was against National University, then Far Eastern University (FEU), Adamson,
University of the East (UE), University of the Philippines (UP), and University of Santo Tomas
(UST). In those games, we had to win three. It was a double-round tournament. If we started
losing, we would have to play catch-up, at a time when the other teams were going to hit their
peak. We were able to start 5-1.
Denden: After we won five straight games, Coach had to go back to Thailand to coach
his team there. We lost back-to-back games against La Salle. There was something missing – his
energy, his quick changes in tactics to adapt to what the opponent was doing. He would always
scout the other team before we played them, to prepare us. And, of course, La Salle was La Salle.
They were still unbeaten. We did not know how to defeat them yet.
Amy: Any game against La Salle was always a hard battle. Besides being the defending
champion, we knew that there was so much more emotion involved in playing them. We must
have felt the pressure. They had been undefeated in two seasons. Coach Tai was our safety net.
He was really positive and gave us so much confidence and, when he left, we were thinking, “Oh
no, how can we do this?”
Denden: We lost again to NU, another really strong team. Those two teams, DLSU and
NU, were favored to meet in the Finals.
Amy: And then Coach came back and we started to win again. Basically when he was
there, we win! I can’t speak for everyone but I had so much confidence when he was coaching. If
he was on your side, you would be good.
Alyssa: We were just doing what we did during the practices and following Coach’s
preparation. Maybe that’s why we were winning. Every game was like do-or-die game, that’s

Page 12 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

what we told each other, “just one last push.” We were so tired, as we had to deal with exams on
top of volleyball. So we did not feel that we reached the end of the season. We were just thinking
one game at a time. Coach Tai was doing his part, and we were doing our part. That way, we
connected, right on time.
The team finished the elimination round with a record of 10 wins and 4 losses. That put
them in third place, behind La Salle, undefeated at 14-0, and NU, who defeated all teams except
La Salle, in second place at 12-2. Ateneo was in the playoffs again.

The Step-Ladder Series

At the end of the elimination round, ADMU was in third place and poised to climb the
“stepladder.” The team would have to beat Adamson to proceed to a playoff against NU for the
right to face DLSU, which had already qualified in the Finals by virtue of finishing in first place.
For the Lady Eagles, third place was more than they had dreamed of at the start of the season.
Their “no expectations” approach had paid off. Now they needed to deal with a new situation, as
clear goals lay ahead.

Ricky: When we started the season, we really thought we would do no better than third
place because La Salle and NU were really strong. We ranked number three, and that’s exactly
where we landed. We lost to NU twice; we lost to La Salle twice. And since La Salle swept the
elimination round, we had to go to the stepladder. First there was a knockout game against
Adamson. We knew we could win that.
Tonyboy: Our goal was first to make it to the Final Four. We had a young team, and if
we reached the Final Four, we felt we would already be winners. Anything above that would be
the icing on the cake. So if we beat Adamson, that was already a bonus - third place and bronze!
Ella: Because of our do-or-die, game-by-game approach, we were surprised to reach the
Final Four. We were really happy – not contented, just happy that we reached this far.
Marge: Entering the Final Four, Coach Tai would still not voice his expectations. But our
training, of course, continued.
Aerieal: During the stepladder, our training became even more intense. We didn’t know
if Coach Tai was feeling the pressure already, because he was so hotheaded in training.
Amy: I was actually really scared about the game against Adamson because their defense
was really good. So even if you made good hit after good hit, they just seemed to pop it out
without much effort. So it was really grueling, both physically and mentally, to play against them.
They were a team that could somehow just sneak up and beat you.
Denden: But we swept Adamson in straight sets – surprisingly! It was a surprise because,
whenever we played Adamson, even during previous seasons, we knew it would be a long match.

Page 13 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

For some reason, whenever they faced us, they always played so well. Their floor defense was so
good. No matter where we placed the ball, they would still get to it and get it over the net.
Unbelievable. So we were taken aback when we beat them: “Wow, we won in straight sets!”
Marge: The most Coach said, after we won against Adamson that we had a 50-50 chance
of beating NU. But he said that to our managers, not to the team.

The next level up in the stepladder was against the formidable NU team. Not only were
they strong; as the second seed, they also had a twice-to-beat advantage. That meant that ADMU
would have to beat them in two games, and NU would just have to win once.
Aerieal: We were so happy to have beaten Adamson. At least we would have a trophy
already. And then against NU, we said, even if we won just one game that would be good!
Tonyboy: We would have to beat NU twice – but remember, in the elimination round,
we lost both our games against them. We said, let’s just play and see what the outcome would be.
Amy: Playing NU was always tough. They were so tall. I would be up against the net –
I’m already 5’8” – and there was a 6’4” girl opposite me and a 6’2’ girl on the other side! They
were also a very boisterous team. They talked a lot. They were very loud, and not just to each
other, but they would say things to us, “talking trash,” as they say. We would call out a play, and
they would repeat it and say things like, “That won’t work.” Or, “Go set it there again and I will
block her.”
Michelle: We won the first set, 25-17. We actually beat them for the first time ever.
Denden: Then they beat us in the second set, 25-12. That’s what I remember from the
NU games – in second sets, they always beat us by a big margin. But in Season 76 what
happened after we lost the second set was different. Coach would say, “It’s okay! Next set, next
set! Do better!” And we did. We won Game 1. Wow.
Tonyboy: So when we won Game 1, we felt we could do it again.
Ricky: After Game 1, the girls must have said, “ We can beat this team.”
Amy: Then, of course, they came back again in the second set of Game 2 after we won
the first set. They always came back. They set up Dindin Santiago (one of the two tall Santiago
sisters) with almost every ball. And she just went on a rampage and scored point after point.
Michelle: “It’s zero-zero again!”
Amy: Coach told us, “You’re very good, no problem, no problem. Don’t worry about the
score, you’re very good. Just give me one point. Left and right. Power!” And we were thinking,
“What does this mean? We lost by almost 20 points and he’s telling us we’re good?”
Coach Tai: I told them, “If you believe me, you can win.” I knew how to beat NU. Just
beat Dindin Santiago. Stop one player, stop the team. We trained how to block Santiago, how to
defend. We had tactics.

Page 14 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Amy: We just played well because we thought we were good. That’s how I think we
were able to come back after a set like that. We could’ve felt really demoralized, having only
scored eight points, with so many people watching. But when the third set started, we were able
to wash it out of our minds. We could have a really bad set and we were able to say, “Okay, let’s
get the next set.”
Denden: For some reason, when we won games… we would look up at the score and
become surprised, “Oh, we’ve reached 25 already. That was it?” Sometimes, we don’t really pay
attention to the score. We’re just paying attention to the game itself. We don't have a sense of
whether our lead, or their lead, was big or small. We just kept on playing.
Michelle: Yeah…we were just focused on the ball.
Denden: Like…we’re in the flow. Or “in the zone,” as they say.
Ricky: NU could not sustain their play and we won the series. For them, that was a big
disappointment. For us, it was a great feeling. We were saying, “Oh, we're second!”
Ella: We were crying after the NU series.
Alyssa: That was the first time I experienced crying tears of joy. I could not explain it. I
felt we were already champions after we won against NU. Before the last game against NU, we
were joking around that if we would win, we would reach out and hug each other and cry. But
we were just joking around – it doesn’t hurt to dream, right? We were saying it just to set the
mood that it was okay to win, and it would also be okay to lose.
Ella: In fact we were so tired from training and so looking forward to resting that we
would joke around, “If we lose, we would not have to train anymore.”
Alyssa: That was our running joke, that it would be our last training. Then we would
laugh as we kept on winning and we had to go back to training.
Michelle We were now in the Finals! We were shocked, truly shocked.

The Finals
The next and final step up the ladder was, of course, no joke, as Ateneo would now face
their old archrival La Salle, who they had to beat three times (La Salle just had to beat Ateneo
twice). The story would not be complete otherwise; it just had to be Ateneo vs. La Salle.
Specifically, it would have to be against a three-time defending champion, who had not lost a
game the whole season. In fact, counting back to the previous season, the Lady Archers had won
33 straight games. La Salle was a relentless shredding machine built to rip up any opposing
school’s dreams, as they had done to Ateneo’s ambitions in the previous two seasons…
Tonyboy: This would not be easy. We would have to find a way to beat La Salle, and we
had to do it three times.

Page 15 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Amy: La Salle had beaten us twice already during the elimination round and they weren’t
afraid of us at all. They were also a very loud team. In that first set they were all cheering, “Ah,
this is so easy.” They must’ve expected to face NU and that we would never reach the Finals.
They thought that it would be easy again: “We just beat them last year, why don’t we just beat
them again?”
Denden: Actually, we didn’t really mind La Salle. If we minded them at all, it was about
how they played but not their aura as defending champions.
Aerieal: We tried to find a way to just enjoy it. We said to each other, “Girls, it’s them
who should be pressured, right?” They were going for a “four-peat” and their team was mostly
intact, and their bench much deeper.
Alyssa: We just wanted to play, and whatever would happen, it would be okay as we had
already achieved so much.

Denden: In the first game, they started with a big lead, like 8-1, in the very first set.
Michelle: We were just laughing because we didn’t know what was happening.
Denden: Yeah, for some reason, we couldn’t block their spikes. We couldn’t receive the
ball. We said, “How do we defend that?” because their spikes were so powerful. So coming into
the second set, we were just laughing. We realized that’s what playing with no pressure meant.
Eventually, we got our groove back.
Michelle: We were able to adjust quickly.
Denden: If we made a mistake – fine, let’s play the next point. We didn’t blame each
other or get angry. It was a very light feeling inside the court.
Marge: We wanted to just be happy playing. We wouldn’t think of anything else.
Amy: They won the first set, 25 – 17, but we were able to come back again, winning
three straight sets. I think that was my highest scoring game in the UAAP. I was in the zone. I
really didn’t hear the crowd. I really didn’t see anyone. I only saw my teammates and my
coaches. While that’s happened before, I haven't been able stay in the zone. That time, I was able
to keep it up the whole game. I think that, getting into the Finals, after playing many do-or-die
games, was enough to make me stay – make all of us stay – in the zone.
Aerieal: At first we thought that it would be better if we didn’t win anymore as we were
so tired from the training. Yet the more we thought we would not win, the more we won. So, in
the first set of Game 1, when we were losing by a big margin, we would just be laughing. Then
we reached the later sets. We couldn’t understand why we kept on winning.
Denden: We won the first game! We were really happy! We won in the finals against La
Salle! We just ended their 33-game winning streak!

Michelle: After Game 1, La Salle had no advantage anymore in terms of how many
games we each had to win. Now, we both had to win two more games.

Page 16 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Amy: Yeah, for the first time, we were finally on an equal level with La Salle.
Ella: After we won Game 1, some people were saying that history would just repeat itself.
That’s because in Season 75, we also won Game 1 then lost the next two games. We didn’t mind
those comments.
Amy: The next day at 5 a.m, Coach made us run five rounds of the oval. He never made
us run five rounds, always three or four. We were thinking, we just won the first game against La
Salle in years and he’s punishing us by making us run five rounds? But we realized he didn’t
want us to be tired, he just wanted us to always push ourselves. Never be satisfied with just doing
three rounds again because now we’ve won against them. He never wanted us to let up. Because
once you let up, opponents will see it and they will take the game from you.
Denden: In Game 2, they started to serve harder. Their placing was also different.
Michelle: We lost Game 2, three sets to one.
Denden: Yeah. They came back with a vengeance. You could see that they were really
out to win. We got one over them, winning Game 1the Finals. We talked about this: “That’s La
Salle we’re playing against. They will not just give up; they're the defending champions.”
Em: We could have won Game 2 if Denden was not injured. She got injured during the
2nd set so she didn’t play that set. She played the 3rd set, which we won. She tried playing the
4th set but we lost that set, and the game.
Tonyboy: Without our libero, Denden, our rotation changed, and so did our game. But
we still took them to four sets even without a libero.
Ricky: While the players must have felt good about winning Game 1, I think they were
still not that sure they would win the series. Some people were saying, “Hey, this is what
happened last year, when we also won Game 1, but La Salle still became champion. When La
Salle won Game 2, the team started to remind themselves to be heartstrong.
Michelle: I think we started to say “Heartstrong” more often in the Finals. Before then,
we just said, “happy.”
Denden: The phrase first came from Coach. He said, “Heartstrong.” At first, we were
like, “No, it’s ‘strong heart’.” But he insisted on saying “heartstrong” and it stuck. At first, it did
not have much of an effect on us. But then, in one game that we were losing, he said, “Give me
one point. Heartstrong!” And then we won that set, so it started to have an impact. Whenever he
said, “Just give me one point,” we would win that set. We would then say, “Heartstrong!” and
we knew we could win. We developed a routine. He would say, “One, two,” and then we would
say “Heartstrong! ”
Michelle: During the Finals, he changed it to “Happy, Unity, Heartstrong!”
Coach Tai: Before we came together that year, you could tell: the team had no heart.

Page 17 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Tonyboy: That’s because we had been losing. We would be in the lead then, somehow,
we would choke and lose the lead, then the game. I told Coach Tai, we lacked confidence, we
lacked fighting spirit.
Coach Tai: Psychology, it’s all about psychology. If we have strong hearts, we would
have the same mind. Before, the team had no heart, did not have the same mind. They needed to
be heartstrong. “Heartstrong” means planning, training, fighting. In everything you do, always be
fighting.
Fr. Jett: I’ve said this in my homilies: What matters is strength of heart, which is not a
physical strength. When you say heart it’s not just emotion. It’s will. For St. Ignatius the will was
the faculty that mattered the most. That’s why St. Ignatius said, “What’s important is magna
anima,” magnanimity, largeness of soul, which to my mind is heartstrong. The soul is that part of
you that decides things in spite of your physical weakness. There’s something more powerful
that transcends those physical limits. I’m glad Coach Tai used this concept in his own way.

Four days later, the two teams played Game 3. It was a do-or-die game for Ateneo. If La
Salle won, they would be champions, again, at the expense of Ateneo, again. The TV announcer
proclaimed, “The Lady Eagles have done a tremendous job in Season 76. They have gone over
expectations. But is the Cinderella run over?”
Denden: In Game 3 we won the first two sets and they won the next two.
Alyssa: Maybe we did not expect to be two sets up. I knew that La Salle would always
come back, as they are a more experienced team. So maybe we had a few doubts, and we became
a little rattled. In the fifth set we just tried to play as one team.
Coach Tai: When we won the first two sets, our hearts were strong. In the next two sets,
maybe our hearts were not strong. I told the players, “Be happy! Believe you can win, and you
will win. ”
Denden: In the last set they were leading 12-8. We heard the crowd starting to chant, “4-
peat! 4-peat!” We just laughed. “Wow, okay. It’s not yet over so why are you chanting 4-peat?”
Tonyboy: La Salle was ahead, 12-8. Coach Tai looked at me, and I suggested he call a
time out. He reminded them to be heartstrong.
Aerieal: Coach called a timeout at the perfect moment, to disrupt the momentum of La
Salle.
Alyssa: When the score reached 13-11 in favor of La Salle, everyone on their side was
now shouting, “Four-peat! Four-peat!” as they were two points away from winning the
championship.
Ella: Usually we didn’t hear the crowd. We could tune them out. But at that moment, we
heard everything. It was a weird feeling.

Page 18 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Denden: Surprisingly, we found our way back into the game. We whittled down their
lead and, all of a sudden, we led 14-13 – match point. Then things happened so fast. They won
the next two points, so it was championship point for them.
Amy: We could see them passing around their championship shirts. We felt, “We’re
there already, don’t let them take it.”
Tonyboy: The press photographers were already setting up on the La Salle side. I told the
team, “Do you hear that? Do you see that? We can still change that.”
Em: The officials from La Salle were already preparing for the awards ceremony.
Michelle: We were receiving. I saw the ball coming towards me. I retrieved it, but for a
second, I was afraid because the ball went away from Jia, but she was able to set up Alyssa for a
point, so I was happy. Then I was able to spike the next point in.
Tonyboy: The momentum had shifted our way. We had game point at 16-15. Jia served,
and La Salle made an error and lost the point. At first they complained, but that was a judgment
call, and you cannot contest a judgment call. The score was 17-15. We won Game 3!
Coach Tai: After the game, somebody said they wanted to stop training, they were so
tired. I told them they could stop after the match.
Tonyboy: He asked them, “Are you satisfied with where you are? They said no. We want
to win.” So he said, “Then you have to follow me.” So he gave them much harder training. He
was telling them that it was for them. They wanted to win, right?
Ricky: La Salle, however, was still favored to win Game 4…

The Last Game

By winning Game 3, the Lady Eagles set up an everything-to-win, everything-to-lose
Game 4. On March 15, 2014, a season-record 21,314 spectators started to stream into the Mall
of Asia Arena at 3:30 in the afternoon, to witness one of two possible history-making outcomes –
a “four-peat” by DLSU or the first-ever UAAP Volleyball Championship of ADMU.
For the Lady Eagles, however, the result was, as ever, subservient to the process. The
muscle memory from countless hours of training, the positive mindset and, yes, heartstrong,
would crystallize in one last game. Of the Lady Eagles, the question to ask was never “Will they
win?” but “Will they stay happy?” and “Will they play with unity?” and “Will they be strong of
heart?”
Alyssa: The training programmed us to just think of the next game. That was our mindset
the whole season. Except this time, there was not going to be a next game. Our mindset changed
entering Game 4. We said, okay, “We’ve reached this far, so why not go all the way?” That way,
our efforts would not be wasted.

Page 19 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Amy: We all had a mindset that said: “Hey, we’re going to take this.” The whole season
leading up to Game 4, we didn’t say anything, we didn’t have expectations. It was like a fairy
tale, and we would just ride it until the end. Even Coach Tai never said, “We’re going to win the
Finals” until the last game, when he told us, “We’re going to win this game.” There was such a
confidence among all of us. It was just unspoken.
Aerieal: Before Game 4, we were excited, dancing and joking around. Coach Tai didn’t
want us to do that. He wanted us to relax. He didn’t want us to expend so much energy before the
game. He had a favorite song, “Bubbly” by Colbie Caillet. Before Game 4, he noticed one our
teammates was feeling nervous. So he asked all of us to meditate. But for that one teammate, he
asked her to sing “Bubbly” so she could relax. He was so wise.
Tonyboy: In the first set, La Salle raced ahead. We came back and then won the set. At
that point we really felt that it was over; that we were going to win. You would see the La Salle
team, especially the first six players, had no more energy, no more initiative. They were burned
out and frustrated. They were already using their second team a lot.
Ricky: The way they played in the first set really boosted the confidence of our team.
Coach Tai: In the first set we could not receive well and set up well. Our defense was
very poor. Our blocking was very poor. So, in the second set, we did a back set, second line
attack.
Tonyboy: During the first set, La Salle proved why they were the number one blocking
team in the UAAP. They were tall and they could easily block our shots. So in the second set
Coach made an adjustment. They were putting two blockers on Alyssa. So he positioned her so
that she would face only one blocker. Then the other spiker, Michelle, would only face one
blocker too. La Salle could not adjust.
Coach Tai: We were also lucky. Sometimes you become lucky, you win.
Tonyboy: Coach would say, “Hengheng.” In Thai that means “lucky.” To win you also
have to be lucky. But you can be lucky if your players are motivated.
Denden: Coach told us, “You have power. They have no power. Just go back to basics.”
Amy: We just shut the door on them. We could see it in their faces. They couldn’t adjust.
Normally, they adjusted well. So if they lost the first set, they would come back. They were
always able to figure out what they needed to do. But in Game 4, it was our game and we just
took it. ‘It’s the Finals, it’s the last game, you just have to take it. No one’s going to give it to
you.”
Ricky: In the 2nd set, we found it tough going. La Salle was up 23-21, and technically
speaking, in volleyball, if you're up by that score, that set is yours.
Em: Because if you’re up, 23-21, like La Salle was, there’s almost no way for you to lose.
Because you give a point, you earn a point, then they would get to 25. You give a point, you earn
a point. And we were serving, which put us at a disadvantage, because La Salle was going to
have the first attack. If they receive well, they could set well, then they could score.

Page 20 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Ricky: But they lost it.

Em: They made a substitution error.
Ricky: They put in their second setter. That setter, I guess, coming from the bench, felt a
lot of pressure and made a mistake, and we tied the score at 24-all.
Em: I guess La Salle already felt the pressure. We scored twice to take the second set,
26-24.
Coach Tai: Before the last set, they did meditation.
Marge: In the third set, after we won the first two sets, we became so excited. Coach saw
this, and he asked us to meditate again. That helped us to relax.
Tonyboy: The other team was warming up, and their coach was talking to them. But
Coach Tai usually gave the players up to one minute of meditation before each set. After that, he
could talk to them.
Em: Coming in to the last set, you could see our ladies were still strong. With their
training, the way they played the last set was the same way they played the first set. They were
clearly stronger and faster.
Tonyboy: In Season 75, with the Fab Five, their physical condition in the Finals would
not be good anymore. In Season 76 you could see the ladies’ physical conditioning, their training,
helped them so much. I don’t think they ever got tired. In the third set we were the ones to pull
ahead.
Amy: It was a long process. We had to fight every step of the way. But we had so much
preparation, so much training, like our bodies intuitively knew what to do even if our brains were
not up to it, because we also had to do school work, take midterm exams, deal with the stress.
Alyssa: We tried not to think too much about the score. After every point, all we would
say was, “There’s a long way to go before 25 points.” We were counting one point at a time until
we got to the very last point.
Denden: In the last set, at 22-19 in our favor, Ella was serving. They spiked it, but Alyssa
blocked it. I got the ball and knelt down to give way to Alyssa who spiked it in, 23-19. The setter
of La Salle tried to place it somewhere far to get an instant point. But then Ella was there, thank
God!
Michelle: Then I blocked it outside. Last touch Ateneo, so it’s La Salle’s point. They
were trying to rally, 23-20.
Coach Tai: When the score was 23-20, I told Alyssa to back-spike.
Tonyboy: Alyssa could spike from all positions. There are six zones. Alyssa had
practiced to spike to from all of those zones. So Coach told her to attack from the back. La
Salle’s blockers were waiting for Alyssa on the left. But Jia would now set it to the middle, so
Alyssa would run towards that position, where only one blocker could follow her.

Page 21 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Denden: At that point the score was 24-20. So it was championship point already.
Michelle: They then tipped the ball over the net. We first thought over-reaching but it
wasn’t. The score became 24-21.
Alyssa: In the last point, we were receiving.
Denden: I was trying to read where the ball would go, but I wasn’t able to move well at
that point. And I mis-received! But Jia got to it and set up Alyssa, who was approaching from far
back...
Alyssa: I was touched by what Amy said right before the point. She was going out of the
game, and she held my face and told me, “You got this, Alyssa.” So I just did that. I said to
myself that I would give my 150 percent to the next spike, no matter what. I needed to be
confident. I thought, “I’m really going to kill this ball.” On that last spike I really gave it my all. I
was screaming inside my head, “NO MORE TRAINING!!!”
Denden: Did we really win?! “That’s the championship? That’s it?”Ahhhh!
Michelle: We were just shouting and crying and laughing. It really has not sunk in…up
to now.
Marge: It felt strange. Huh, did we really just win the Finals? I couldn’t believe it. I
couldn’t even cry.
Amy: It didn’t feel real, it was surreal. It didn’t kick in for a long time. Obviously,
winning the championship was a long process, but the success hit all of a sudden, like, boom!
Alyssa: When they couldn't return the ball, we knew that we won the game – but not that
we won the season. We didn’t think we were already champions. It was only when the confetti
began to fall that we felt like we could celebrate.
Amy: The best thing for me was the confetti. Of course, you could hear the crowd
cheering but then you looked up and you saw everything was white, it was falling and it was
falling for us. Wow.
Aerieal: When I saw the ball drop on that last point, I didn’t know what I should be
feeling… Should I cry? Should I laugh? I just suddenly knelt on the court. We had to leave right
away for the bonfire. So we celebrated on the bus going home. We were so rowdy, dancing on
the aisle of the bus, we even got Coach to dance. We wore our medals the whole night. Up to the
next day we were texting each other to make sure we had not been dreaming. I still get goose
bumps remembering that night.
Ella: We all went to Coach Tai and said, “Wooh! No more training!” By the way, it
would also be our finals week in school.
Coach Tai: After the series, I told them, “If you play happy, you can be champions!” I
knew how we could beat La Salle. I knew how we could play against La Salle. NU, La Salle–
both teams had no heart. If we could fight, we could win. If the score was close, we would win.

Page 22 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Tonyboy: For La Salle to win, they had to have a big lead. They were not used to
fighting in close games. Look at the scores, 25-23, 26-24, 25-21. The sets were very close.
Coach Tai: The feeling…was good. We were champions, a happy feeling. My players
were feeling very good. I said thank you to them, thank you to everybody.
Tonyboy: It wasn’t Coach Tai’s first time to be champion. But he knew that, for the
players, this was a big occasion. After winning the finals, the following day he went home, back
to Thailand. So he wasn’t able to celebrate with the team.

Lasting Lessons
Almost a year later, the team members reflected on Season 76 and what lessons they
could bring with them throughout their lives...
Ricky: The team really worked very hard. They sacrificed a lot. Even if we won many
championships in men’s basketball, I don’t think those teams worked as hard as the Lady Eagles
did. They trained twice a day, six days a week. The basketball teams trained six days a week but
only once a day. So…working really hard, training really hard and believing in themselves…that
is something that all our teams could learn from.
Tonyboy: What I learned from this experience was, if you really want to win, you can
win. But you have to work harder than your opponents. And what I saw with the team was, truly,
nothing is impossible. It was my seventh year with the team. When we lost in Season 75, I heard
that some alumni said we could never win – because our manager is from La Salle. Now I could
say, who says Ateneo couldn’t win with a La Sallian as manager!
Coach Tai: My learning? Everything. How to play, thinking how to win. Before
competition: training, training, training. Training how to be good, how to be strong. Scouting.
Learning how to beat La Salle. Training to win. Thinking to win. Playing to win.
Jia: I learned that I could focus on doing something because I love it! To find something
that I really loved to do and was worth my time, no matter how difficult it would be – that was
very fulfilling. I learned that when I reached my goals, I could make new goals. That sense of
accomplishment is a really good feeling.
Kim: For me, it is being able to share my talent with others, that I could also inspire other
people. They would say that our leadership was inspiring and it would make them push
themselves also.
Michelle: Don't give up. Even when you face something really difficult, just think that
you can do it.

Marge: Never settle for anything less. Never give up. This could be applied not just to
volleyball but to every situation. It could be as simple as you have something to do at school but

Page 23 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

there are times that you don’t feel you can do it, don’t give up. If you give up, you wasted what
you have started. You already exerted effort to it, so you might as well finish it.
Amy: The first one, and this might be really obvious, is that no one can ever take away
the fact that we won. We were champions. We were able to make history. We were able to make
everyone proud. We were able to make ourselves proud. That’s something that will stick with us,
the fact that we’re champions. We were able to come together, and achieve something that
seemed impossible. Second, being able to achieve things that people said that you couldn’t. We
weren’t supposed to win. We weren’t supposed to keep winning. We weren’t supposed to beat
La Salle. We were still somehow able to block out what other people thought or what happened
in the past, and just focus on what we had and what we could do. We learned to not worry about
anything that happened before or what would happen after, and to just focus on the moment.
Ella: I try my best to apply the lessons of our season to all aspects of my life. Once, I
bumped into Coach Tai on the campus. He asked me, “You have an exam?” I said, “Yes, Coach.”
And he said, “Heartstrong!” He taught us that nothing is really impossible if you believe you can
accomplish it. No matter how tough the challenge, you can do it. Don’t give up because it will be
all worth it in the end.
Denden: The lessons I would keep could be summarized through our team mantra –
Happy, Unity, Heartstrong. “Happy” means to always see the bright side. “Unity” means it’s
always a team effort, that no man is an island, that you shouldn’t isolate yourself from others.
“Heartstrong” means to never give up. No matter how difficult, trust yourself that you can do it.
Even if other people say you can do it, you still won’t be able to do it if you don’t believe it
yourself.
Alyssa: I learned from this experience that I could learn new things every day. Today is a
new day that will become history tomorrow, so I can make the most of it by learning something
new. Every day brings a new scenario – and how to become open to new things is a lesson that I
will bring with me. I should never be closed-minded. I should always accept change.
Fr. Jett: I’m not usually able to see myself, the person, separately from the institution.
But I’ve seen myself enriched personally by the experience of the Lady Eagles and how they
won the championship and how they remained humble and true to themselves. I’m now also
thinking of who I am. I’m not going to be here forever as President, so I need to make sure that
my position doesn’t get to my head. Otherwise it could destroy me. What has been personally
enriching is character – that the team had this character that I could identify with and resonate
with easily. Ateneans have been given talents. But what do you do with those talents? And I
think for me, one talent is to lead, to orchestrate, and to try to coach people to become who they
are. I drew a lot of joy from that experience, and I’m really grateful to them for that experience. I
don’t think it would happen in quite that way again.

Epilogue
As the Lady Eagles prepare for Season 77, they confront many questions. How would
they live up to the high expectations they now surely face? Have success and fame changed them
– would they become overconfident, would they exhibit the same high level of teamwork, would

Page 24 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

they be able to cope with the bigger emotional demands that celebrity brings? The team is now a
clearer target for competitors, who will prepare harder to beat Ateneo; can the team elevate its
capabilities to remain on top? Will they win the “back-to-back championship” that is on
everyone’s lips?
The answers, and the results of the season, will come later.
Meanwhile, training beckons... n

Page 25 of 26
 AWVT Season 76 Case Study, ADMU PhD Leadership Studies

Page 26 of 26