Ramil de Jesus Establishes a Winning Tradition in UAAP, PSL

For a coach who once played for Far Eastern University (FEU) during his collegiate career, Ramil de Jesus might just make a good case as one of the greatest coaches of all-time to ever coach in the women's volleyball of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP).

Sure, FEU still owns the most number of championships in the women's volleyball of the UAAP at 29 while the University of Santo Tomas (UST) stands with 15 titles, but La Salle is slowly catching up with 11. 11 championships including three three-peats all under Coach Ramil de Jesus. One could say that de Jesus' arrival to Taft Avenue changed La Salle's fate in the women's volleyball

While the De La Salle Lady Spikers bagged the first-ever women's volleyball championship of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) when the league first introduced women's volleyball in 1975, their first championship in the UAAP women's volleyball didn't come along until Season 62 when they accomplished the feat against FEU. And that happened in Ramil de Jesus' only third season at the helm. And believe it or not, Ramil de Jesus came aboard in Season 60 and La Salle finished fourth in the standings- their best finish thus far. But on Season 61, they made it to the finals only to lose to FEU but they won't be denied in the next season as La Salle went on to reach the finals eight consecutive seasons while winning a three-peat in that span. They missed the Final Four only twice under de Jesus and that was during Season 69 when the school was banned from all UAAP events and in Season 70 when the Lady Spikers were hit by controversy regarding a player who decided to take a leave of absence from the school but still played for the team. Thrice if we are to count the scrapped Season 82. 

In that span of time, Ramil de Jesus' time with the Lady Spikers saw him mold the foundation of the careers of some of the biggest names in women's volleyball, particularly in the Philippine SuperLiga such as Mika Reyes, Ara Galang, Aby Marano, Michelle Gumabao, Desiree Hernandez, and Desiree Cheng. But more than dominating the collegiate for more than a decade, many pundits are pointing Ramil de Jesus' time with La Salle as one of the things that helped Philippine women's volleyball become the popular sports that it is right now and part of the reasons why women's volleyball has been booming prior to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic is that, La Salle's dominance for almost two decades pushed other UAAP teams to pick up the slack and get better. And while the Lady Spikers haven't hoisted the UAAP championship since 2017, it has been a consistent Final Four team since de Jesus took over and one way or another, La Salle's women's volleyball program would have been different if de Jesus wasn't the one at the helm. And so is the state of Philippine volleyball

And yes, Ramil de Jesus' greatness as a coach didn't stop in the UAAP as he is also the architect behind the four PSL championships of the F2 Logistics Cargo Movers including the past two PSL championships in 2019. And with most of his players being mostly former La Salle stars, we can expect the "RDJ" effect to run for a long time. 

Consistent as a winning coach both in the collegiate and professional ranks, Ramil de Jesus' name is already long etched in the history of Philippine volleyball, not because of the number of championships that he won but more importantly, the number of players he handled who became the game's biggest and brightest stars. And that enabled RDJ to establish a winning tradition. 

Photo is from Head Topics