Schools rising to the challenge
US collegiate exchanges bolster development of Chinese hoops
Nearly 5,000 Chinese fans got an up-close look at the nuances of US college hoops when the Yale Bulldogs beat the University of California Golden Bears 76-59 at Shanghai’s Baoshan Sports Center earlier this month.
The Pac-12 showdown — the conference’s fourth straight season-opening China Game — has come to symbolize the spirit of cooperation between visiting US collegiate teams and their Chinese hosts.
“We brought our entire production team here to create the look and feel of a US college game, complete with cheerleaders from Cal-Berkeley,” said Pac-12 deputy commissioner and chief operating officer Jamie Zaninovich.
“The Chinese audience got an opportunity to see what it’s like to be a part of the pageantry of American college sports, and as the popularity of the Pac-12 and college sports continues to grow here, it’s fitting that we provide the opportunity for multiple member universities to participate in a phenomenal week of activities.
“We look forward to exposing our basketball programs and their student athletes to the country and culture of China, and to expanding the educational and global impact of Arizona State and Colorado when they visit next year.”
Ahead of the China Game, Yale participated in the China-US Collegiate Basketball Invitational, defeating a combined team of China’s Peking University and Soochow University 93-84 at SND Cultural and Sports Center in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.
As well, the fourth annual China-US University Sports and Education Summit was held in Suzhou, attracting hundreds of industry leaders, sports education experts and student athletes from the two countries.
“Since we established cooperation with the Pac-12 conference and introduced the China Game in 2015, a new channel of China-US sports education has been established,” said Xu Yongji, deputy director general of the Ministry of Education’s department of international cooperation and exchanges
“For the past three years we have selected about 400 Chinese university and middle school coaches of basketball, athletics, swimming, volleyball and tennis to participate in exchanges with the US, which greatly support the coach training system in China and added new energy to China-US cooperation and people-to-people exchanges.”
Xue Yanqing, president of Federation of University Sports of China, said the nation “needs to learn from the best.”
“Now students from about 1,500 universities across China have joined our soccer and basketball leagues. However, we have to admit that the collegiate sports system in the US is much more advanced than ours,” said Xue.
“There is much more for us to learn, such as how to strengthen our basketball culture. In the near future, the goal of our federation is to provide more opportunities for Chinese university students to participate in sports and increase the population of student athletes in China.”
Although the platform has been built, it’s still only a small number of Chinese athletes that get to train and study in the US. But for those who have immersed themselves in the foreign basketball and academic cultures, the experience is very valuable.
That includes James Zhao, who played for the under-17 Chinese National Team and the Chinese Olympic Preparation Team before joining the Golden Bears as the first male basketball player to enter the NCAA from a Chinese high school.
“Basketball has always been a big part of my life, and it has opened doors beyond the game,” said Zhao.
“I see basketball as something that connects other countries, people and cultures. It can bridge the world.
“The US is a basketball powerhouse and we can learn a lot of things from the Americans to help the development of Chinese basketball, such as training techniques, nutrition and recovery.”
Zhao hopes to become an entrepreneur and investor in the future, so balancing sports and academic life has become a key issue for him.
“Time management in the US colleges is easier,” he said. “In China, I had to spend a long time on training every day ... five to six hours on the basketball court. Afterwards, I didn’t have enough time for my academic life and other stuff.
“At Berkeley, we only need to train two hours on the court each day. We have free time after that, so I can study and have a social life.”
More training and exchange programs based on the Pac-12 model are expected.
“Over the past seven years, the Pac-12 and the FUSC have hosted competitions and coaching clinics in China and the US, as well as facilitated educational ‘people to people’ exchange between our two organizations,” said Zaninovich.
“The Pac-12 conference comprises 12 leading universities in the western US, and engagement with China is a priority for them as they have embraced the increasingly global nature of higher education.
“This is evidenced by the more than 30,000 Chinese students who currently attend our 12 universities.”