From the Sidelines is a feature series that seeks to profile talented individuals who work behind the scenes in contributing to the greater success of Ateneo sports. In the eighth installment, we take a look at the experiences of Emmanuel “Em” Fernandez as the former UAAP President and current University Athletics Office Director.

KEEPING A collegiate sports program running amid a pandemic is hard to ask of anyone, as the task requires cooperation among the athletes, coaches and administrators involved. Despite the challenges that these times bring, University Athletic Office (UAO) Director Emmanuel “Em” Fernandez has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to keep Atenean sports alive and intact.

Blue Eagle through and through

Sir Em has been in sports for most of his life; he played baseball for La Salle Greenhills during his grade school and high school years, then for Ateneo in the University Athletics Association of the Philippines (UAAP) in college. According to Sir Em, he lived and breathed baseball. “I was really just playing baseball all the time. Kung hindi man for [Ateneo], I would sometimes play for Cainta, so I was pretty much playing the whole year,” he said.

Upon graduating from the Loyola Schools (LS) with a degree in BS Management and a minor in Marketing, Sir Em spent the start of his professional career outside the world of sports. Sir Em worked for Jollibee as a management trainee and store manager over the span of four years. After working in the fast food industry, he then moved on to Starbucks to become a management trainee and one of the pioneers of the Katipunan branch.

During his time in Starbucks, Sir Em started to assist the Ateneo Men’s Baseball Team by sourcing funds for the team and even playing with them from time to time. Eventually, the LS College Athletics Office (CAO) offered him a position as the Interim Athletics Coordinator—yet Sir Em was hesitant to renew his contract as he was interested in operational rather than administrative work.

Despite his uncertainty, Sir Em took the chance and continued his work as the athletics coordinator—talking to student-athletes and ultimately just being around sports again. Soon after, he accepted an offer from the then UAO Director Richard Palou to transfer offices and work as the UAO Assistant Director. In 2015, Sir Em assumed the role of Director of the UAO, a position he still holds today.

Hosting the UAAP

Four years after Sir Em assumed the director role, Ateneo was slated to host the 82nd Season of the UAAP. Sir Em, being the head of the UAO, was appointed as UAAP President to spearhead Ateneo’s hosting duties alongside UAO Assistant Director Erika Dy.

Sir Em’s Season 82 presidential term was full of surprises, as 2019 was also the year when the Philippines hosted the Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) from November 30 to December 11, 2019. Given that the SEA Games schedule coincided with the usual UAAP timeframe, Sir Em and the Board of Directors (BoD) decided to adjust the UAAP’s entire calendar. Since some UAAP athletes were selected to represent the Philippine national team, several sports usually slated to take place in the first semester were moved to the second semester. Moreover, the men’s and women’s basketball seasons were compressed to only two months.

Despite the challenges brought about by scheduling, Sir Em and the rest of the BoD made history in collegiate basketball and volleyball. In coordination with Nike and ABS-CBN, the UAAP broadcasted its first-ever women’s basketball game—between De La Salle University and Ateneo—on October 13, 2019. Furthermore, 3×3 basketball was made an official UAAP event during that season. In terms of volleyball, the UAAP implemented the video challenge system to aid referees in making more accurate decisions during games.

Unfortunately, most of these initiatives were put to a halt as Season 82 was officially cancelled on April 7, 2020. Although necessary, the decision to cancel the season was difficult to make considering that there were student-athletes expecting to play in the second semester. “At the end of the day, you have athletes who were there [in Season 82]. You have athletes [who], even for the second semester, [had] trained. Hindi lang sila nakapaglaro (They just did not get to play), but they were there,” said Sir Em.

The show must go on

Encouragingly, there have been talks of the UAAP making its comeback as early as February 2022. In the meantime, Sir Em and the rest of the UAO have been continually supporting the Atenean student-athletes in the pandemic, as his office has focused on empathizing with student-athletes as they balance life in the new normal and the rigors of their programs. To help student-athletes maintain this balance, the UAO has implemented designated training times—either 6-9 in the morning or 6-9 in the evening—to make sure that every student-athlete has time for their academics, family, and personal lives. “Mas taxing online. Minsan wala kang time to prepare (It is more taxing online. Sometimes you don’t have time to prepare). It’s [really] a different animal,” shared Sir Em.

Aside from taking care of the student-athletes, Sir Em has also overseen the maintenance of sports facilities for when physical training resumes. “These past two years, we’ve been maintaining our facilities—the football field, the Blue Eagle Gym, lahat ‘yan. Hindi naman pwedeng babalik sila tapos hindi ka nakahanda (We won’t allow our student-athletes to come back and the facilities aren’t ready for them),” promised the UAO director.

While UAO remains committed to the job, Sir Em confessed that it is still an on-going process for himself and the rest of the office to adjust to the circumstances created by the pandemic. One aspect he misses the most about on-site classes is the relationship that he gets to build with the student-athletes. “Yung personal interactions—going to the training of the track [team], watching them train. I think ‘yun yung nawala, and it’s harder to replicate [online],” Sir Em confessed.

Holding it down

Moving forward, Sir Em hopes that he may soon return to cheering Atenean athletes on as they don the Blue and White. “I miss jumping from tournament to tournament because my weekends [were] always filled with watching an Ateneo game here and an Ateneo game there, which sometimes gets tiring but apparently [is something] I miss,” he said.

Regardless of online or on-site classes, Sir Em gives it his all in terms of serving the Atenean student-athlete. From being appointed UAAP President to flourishing in his role as UAO Director, Sir Em’s motives extend far beyond sports excellence. At the end of the day, his main focus is to help prepare the student-athletes to become the best versions of themselves. As Ateneo sports live on amidst uncertainty, Sir Em continues to work behind the scenes to preserve the sports culture in the university for generations to come.