First year National University (NU) head coach Regine Diego is looking forward to her debut in the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) Season 88 women’s volleyball tournament.

But what excites her the most is the opportunity to go up against the decorated tactician and her former college mentor, Ramil De Jesus of De La Salle University.

“I want to show Coach Ramil that I can coach and that I deserve a chance to go up against him. And I’m happy that I get to do it (in the coming UAAP),” Diego said in the DAILY TRIBUNE’s Off the Court on Thursday.

Diego has come a full circle in the country’s top collegiate volleyball league as a champion Lady Spiker in the mid-2000s and is now seeking to steer the Lady Bulldogs to a three-peat.

In her short three-year stint with La Salle, she helped the Lady Spikers capture the 2009 crown at the expense of the then-Rachel Daquis-led Far Eastern University.   

Diego didn’t get a crack at De Jesus during the Lady Bulldogs’ flawless conquest of the 2025 Shakey’s Super League Preseason Unity Cup after the rebuilding La Salle opted to skip the competition due to injuries to its key players.   

The young NU coach, who replaced Sherwin Meneses last September, will get a chance to meet the biggest influence in her coaching career at the end of the first round of eliminations of the coming UAAP season, expected to open in February.

“He (De Jesus) made me a stronger person. The person I am today is because of him. He’s part of that,” Diego said of the coach she respects the most.

“And also, he showed me the formula of how to be a champion. I’m not saying that that’s what I’m doing now but, you know, I knew how it is to be a champion because of him also,” she added.

Diego is making a coaching return since her last stint as mentor of the F2 Logistics in the Premier Volleyball League (PVL) back in 2023, before it disbanded in December of that year.

With the UAAP wars fast approaching, there is no rest for the weary NU.

Lady Bulldogs are currently playing in the Maharlika Pilipinas Volleyball Association, representing Dasmarinas, as part of their buildup.

An international training is also in the pipeline for NU.