With rising incomes, media-savvy youth, and a huge population, India seems to the NBA to be it’s next big thing. One problem – Indians don’t seem to like basketball that much. “Genetically, we’re not inclined that way,” says an Indian sportswriter in an article in the LA Times on this subject. Sports are also seen as a distraction from studying. There is lack of sports facilities in most schools, let along basketball courts. Poor students with only one change of clothes are reluctant to get sweaty at school. Then again, poverty hasn’t stopped Filipinos from being basketball fanatics.
To boost basketball’s popularity in India, the NBA has looked for an Indian player who could have an impact in the country much like Yao Ming’s impact in China. One possibility is Satnam Singh Bhamara. This 14 year old is 7 feet tall and weighs 250 pounds. After shining at a local basketball academy in India, he will soon go to a basketball academy in the U.S. Indian basketball players may seem unusual, but as I have seen tall, excellent ones while watching my sons play. We have also written about the 7 foot Bhullar Brothers who are college prospects. Does Satnam have the skills to make the impact that the NBA dreams about? As described in this article from SportsKeeda, Troy Justice, the NBA’s Director of Basketball Operations in India, thinks so: “If I could, I would work with this kid every day,” he says. “He can be the chosen one for basketball in India.”
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After working out with a number of teams, including his hometown Golden State Warriors, Harvard point guard Jeremy Lin was not taken in the NBA draft. No Ivy League player was taken, and Cornell standout Jeff Foote signed with the Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv club, which plays in Israeli and European leagues.
Shopping With GASP!
I’m relatively obsessed with height. I’ve always dreamed of not just being an awesome basketball player, but also looking like I belong comfortably in the paint*. I even tried to play in 8th and 9th grade. I had the same coach both years, who I loved, but hated when I felt like he was constantly yelling at me and gesturing confusingly from the bench while I felt like a short, scrawny chicken running around with my head cut off. Either way, I clearly didn’t have much instinct for it, and the coach even yelled once, “THIS ISN’T VOLLEYBALL, GET THE BALL!!!” when I smacked it out of someone else’s hands. I’m still kind of traumatized by it. Though I wasn’t cognizant of it at the time, I now wished I could have seen at least one Asian American on either the boys or girls basketball teams.
So, of course, I’m in awe after coming across the story of Sim and Tanveer Bhullar, two Indian brothers who moved to a school “nearby” to play basketball. From the way they are coming along, the pair will picked up at the college level. By marital default (my husband bleeds black and gold – need I say more?) I have to hope that at least one of them (but definitely, both, especially since they want to play together) goes to Pitt, where they will be bigger than the famed Primanti Brothers sandwich. And with their growing athleticism, if basketball doesn’t work out, maybe they can try for the Pittsburgh Pirates, where the mascot is currently their best player. Though I’m not the biggest Pennsy fan, I love that they’re here in the same state, and would potentially make Pittsburgh that much more interesting.
Hopefully, this will make Jeremy Lin not feel so lonely as one of the few APAs in the sport and others aware that tall Asian Americans do exist, as Jeff wrote about in his experiences with his sons’ basketball team. Maybe someday I’ll have kids who will be inspired by these great trailblazers and be tall enough to play some legitimate ball (and not dump their milk at breakfast like I did and now regret), so I can live vicariously through them.
*I have to admit I had to verify some basketball lingo and sports statistics with my husband. He’s not so thrilled about my Pirates assessment, though he knows it’s very true.
Having coached both of my sons in basketball, I can understand how frustrating it can be to have your team lose. But Mark Ho and Jannie Han took things a bit too far when the 21 year old Han, coach of the freshman girls basketball team at heavily Asian San Gabriel High, suited up and played on Ho’s JV girls team. Because of this and after accusations of a cover-up attempt, the entire girls basketball coach staff was fired. I wonder how Han thought that she could get away with passing herself off as being much younger. Pearl Cream? Asian beauty secrets? I could never do that with my sons’ teams. I think my graying temples and receding hairline would give me away!
Harvard-Westlake of North Hollywood’s Nicole Hung was selected as California State Athlete of the week by ESPN’s Calhisports.com. Not only is she a great basketball player, scoring 24 points and pulling down 12 rebounds in a recent 70-67 victory, but this 6-0 girl has a 4.2 GPA, plays piano like a concert pianist, and plays bassoon in the Harvard-Westlake High School orchestra. Her team is California’s #1 ranked Division 4 team (#5 overall), and she’s headed to Princeton. Does that remind anyone else of a certain Asian American Ivy league basketball player?
You might wonder how UC Berkeley 7-3 center Max Zhang could have room to grow, but he’s growing in many ways:
Growing in size. How could a 7-3 man grow in size? Not in terms of height, but in bulk. His coaches say that he needs to add bulk and strength, as he arrived from China weighing only 208 pounds. Cal coach Mike Montgomery arranged from a visa for Zhang’s mom to come to Berkeley to cook for him and basically fatten him up – an ideal job for an Asian mom! His mother was constantly shoving dumpings in his face, and now he’s up to 245. Amazing. I have to say that I didn’t any help to gain weight in college!
Growing in skill and comfort on and off of the court. Max has adjusted to life in Berkeley. It took at lot to get used to classes in English, but he worked hard at it. It helps that UC Berkeley is 40% Asian. “It’s not much different than walking on a college campus in China,” he says of the school. “I see the Asian faces. It makes me feel like it’s home.” His coach says that he is work in progress, but he clearly is improving as he scored 13 points in a win over rival Stanford. To help him get more aggressive (and less stereotypical!), his conditioning coach has him doing boxing drills.
Growing in popularity. Jeremy Lin has grown wildly in popularity, and I fear that he may sag under the weight of Asian-American expectations. Although Zhang is not the starting center, he seems to be a fan favorite. His coaches may be trying to make him tougher and meaner, but his niceness makes him wildly popular. How much do the fans love him? He missed 5 out of 6 free throws at a game with U.C. Santa Barbara, but nearly got a standing ovation on the make!
On the face of it, Jeremy Lin seems to be getting more respect and exposure. Time Magazine has an article on him called “Harvard’s Hoop Star is Asian. Why is that a problem?” The article talks about the double novelty of a pro-level player not just from Harvard but Asian-American. It also mentions how “racial profiling” stopped him from being recruited by any Division I colleges despite leading a team to a California State Championship and how Lin commonly encounters racial insults at games.
I find it interesting how the title changed. When John first forwarded the article, it was called “Harvard’s Hoop Star is Asian. Got a problem with that?” Now the title is changed. Was the original title too confrontational to be associated with the stereotypical view of an Asian-American?
More than “why is that a problem,” the question I want to know is why there is seems to be so little outrage against the constant racism against Lin. The article dances around that question, particularly how weakly it hints at the issues with the lack of Division I recruitment: “don’t doubt that a little racial profiling, intentionally or otherwise, contributed to his under-recruitment.” There seems to be a growing trend to deny or dismiss that any racism against Asian-Americans occurs, from the students in Philadelphia to Toby Keith’s escapade at the Nobel Prize ceremony.
So is Jeremy Lin really getting more respect? Despite garnering much praise (“He’s as good an all-around guard as I’ve seen,” says Tony Shaver, the head coach of William & Mary ), accumulating great stats, and playing well against teams like UConn and Boston College, a blog from ESPN points out that he was NOT nominated for the Bob Cousy award, an award given to the best point guards in college. The reason cited is that Lin wasn’t nominated by Harvard. The blogger adds that he thinks that Lin will be added. So is Jeremy Lin really getting more respect? If he actually does get added to the Cousy nominees, then I think we’ll know for sure.
My sons finished their very long basketball seasons last month, and I was surprised how some of my own views on sports, basketball, and Asian-Americans changed after what seemed to be an endless season. Here are six lessons that I learned:
Lesson 1: There are tall Asian-Americans out there
I find that the Asian-Americans are generally shorter.
I said that (so did Barack Obama), but after this season, I’d have to qualify that statement to “some groups of Asian-Americans are shorter.” Number One Son’s 6th grade basketball team had a non-league game scheduled against “School T”. Both teams were mostly Asian-American, but School T’s Indian and Chinese kids were taller than our Filipino kids. The real shock came when my sons’ schools’ 7th grade team played School T’s 7th grade team. While both teams were mostly Asian, their 7th graders towered over our 7th graders, with a Chinese forward and an Indian forward who were each close to 6 feet tall.
I have noticed that more and more tall Indian and Chinese kids are playing basketball. This discussion points out that some provinces in China are known for having tall people. Moreover, the Asian-American basketball league Dreamleague has 6 feet and over divisions. One thing, though, is that when there is a tall Chinese kid, he gets referred to as “Yao Ming.” “Yao Ming just got the rebound!” Annoying.
More lessons after the jump…
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“That team could use some black kids!”
This was the comment of Number Two Son, pointing to the mostly white team that his mostly black team beat in an NJB game.
That incident came to mind when I saw this article about the rarity of Asian-American college basketball players that Efren forwarded. Stereotypical notions about who can play basketball and who can’t already had sunk into Number Two Son. These prejudices affect Jeremy Lin, a starting point guard and leading scorer at Harvard, shown in the picture to the right.
The article points out that although basketball is popular with Asian American youth, there are few making it to the college level. “It’s a sport for white and black people. You don’t get respect for being an Asian American basketball player in the U.S.” said Lin. As a Northern California’s Division II player of the year who lead Palo Alto High School to a Division II State Championship, he expected some Division I scholarship offers but gotten exactly none. On the road, he gets taunts like “Go back to China!” and “Open your eyes!”
Stereotypes and blatant racism aren’t the only obstacle that Asian-American athletes face – family attitudes are another. Being in sports aren’t always encouraged, much less having kids aspire to be professional athletes. I have coached mostly Asian-American volleyball teams for a number years, and I have seen all kinds of reasons that Asian-American parents stop their kids from doing sports. These have ranged from “you are too weak to play” and “you might get hurt” to my least favorite one: “you need to concentrate on academics.” I lost a player this year to that last one (a really good one too), and ironically he was already getting good grades! At my sons’ school, kids with grade problems can’t play.
I think some of the problem is with the system of kids’ sports. Adults living vicariously through their kids have professionalized kids sports to the point where if you really want to be competitive in a sport you have to do it all year. In basketball, what usually happens is that in the off-season, the kids are expected to join club teams or compete on AAU teams. In Volleyball, kids are expected to join club teams in the off-season. A high-level traveling volleyball team can be extremely expensive in the range of thousands of dollars. That’s a high cost that I don’t many Asian-American parents wouldn’t pay – they’d have trouble seeing the value in that. I have trouble seeing the value in that myself. In far too many youth sports, the competitive aspect is overemphasized vs the exercise and participation and fun aspects. Kids figure they might as well go play video games if sports is a painful, non-fun experience.
Intermarriage, the article says, will help to produce bigger Asian Americans to counteract the stereotype that Asian Americans are short. I find that the Asian-Americans are generally shorter. When Number One Son sees a taller team (usually mostly white), he usually moans, “Oh no, we’re going to lose.” While my teams have often over come height disadvantages, they have lost to a number of teams because of height.
The article mentions that Asian-American players don’t get respect, but I think that is changing as more and more Asian-Americans get involved in sports. I would say that some of this is from parents who are looking to the future and wanting some kind of sports experience on their kids high school or college applications. I do know a number of kids going the club team route and making it on highly competitive teams. On Number Two Son’s team which is mostly African American, Number Two Son has managed to land the difficult point guard position, earning him respect.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Lin remains a lonely pioneer.
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