The Ateneo Blue Eagles

Sports has always been the favorite pastime of many Filipinos and one of the sports closest to our hearts is the game of basketball. Many many years ago the Ateneo de Manila was at the forefront of College basketball as their teams would play basketball games against other schools in the early part of the 20^th century. Those dual meets would eventually become the backbone of the National Collegiate Athletic Association which they co-founded together with the University of the Philippines, University of Santo Tomas, De La Salle College, University of Manila, National University, Institute of Account (FEU) and San Beda College. During that time, the Ateneo adopted the colors Blue and White as its official school colors. This was the Ateneo’s way of showing their support to Mother Mary most specially to Maria Purissima Queen of the Ateneo. In the 1930’s interest in basketball was getting higher and a lot of schools then were naming mascots to their respective schools. It was at that time when the Ateneo adopted their mascot – the Eagle.

In On Wings of Blue, a booklet of Ateneo traditions, songs, and cheers published in the 1950’s, Lamberto Javellana writes:

“The Eagle—fiery, majestic, whose kingdom is the virgin sky, is swift in pursuit, terrible in battle. He is a king—a fighting king… And thus he was chosen—to soar with scholar’s thought and word high into the regions of truth and excellence, to flap his glorious wings and cast his ominous shadow below, even as the student crusader would instill fear in those who would battle against the Cross. And so he was chosen—to fly with the fleet limbs of the cinder pacer, to swoop down with the Blue gladiator into the arena of sporting combat and with him to fight—and keep on fighting till brilliant victory, or honorable defeat. And so he was chosen—to perch on the Shield of Loyola, to be the symbol of all things honorable, even as the Great Eagle is perched on the American escutcheon, to be the guardian of liberty. And so he was chosen—and he lives, not only in body to soar over his campus aerie, but in spirit, in the Ateneo Spirit… For he flies high, and he is a fighter, and he is King!”

The eagle also appears in the standards of many organizations, schools, and nations as a "guardian of freedom and truth." Dante in his Divine Comedy uses the Eagle as a symbol of the Roman Empire, which used the bird as part of its standard. The ancient Romans considered the eagle sacred to Jupiter himself. The eagle is often seen as the bird of God, the only bird that can fly above the clouds and stare directly at the sun. This is also why it represents St. John the Evangelist, in honor of the "soaring spirit and penetrating vision of his gospel."

The word blue was then added to the eagle since the school colors were blue. That was the birth of the ATENEO BLUE EAGLES.

References: Blue Eagle, the King