“How Long Have You Been in Taiwan?”

I\’ve always believed that basketball is a platform upon which everyone can transcend their worldly differences.  While I still believe there is much validity to this idea, my experience coaching at our tournament at Malone Academy of Christ in Taichung has revealed to me that in some ways this is more true in virtue than in practice.

Greg, the head coach of the TES varsity team, woke me up at 4:45 with a cup of coffee that he had ground himself.  He had invited me to stay over for the night so I would not have to make my regular 25-commute to TES to make the bus.  After a phenomenal family dinner prepared by the wives of both him and Joe – fellow teacher and close friend of Greg – I was refreshed and ready to take on a full day of Taiwanese basketball. Greg was kind enough to go out of his way to find me the coach\’s collared t-shirt, as the used TES athletics t-shirt provided to me deeply discontented him.  As a previous coach of much higher-level programs, he takes particular pride in looking the part, although the basketball team is still very much in development.  I happily accepted the new gear, as it gave some legitimacy to my outfit, otherwise consisting of a slightly-too-short pair of khaki shorts that could be found on safari leaders, and the \”Dr. J\” mid-calf socks I received for Christmas.

We arrived at the bus at 5:40, but didn\’t leave until one of our sophomore forwards came streaking in around the corner with his eyes half-open at 5:52.  Parents, who had been waiting with most of the players the whole time, briefly greeted us and waved goodbye to their kids as we boarded the coach bus.  Just like seemingly anyone behind the wheel of Taiwanese public transportation, the bus driver spoke no English, so Greg had instructed one of the team\’s senior captains to arrange the ride to Taichung as per protocol.  With this aside, the experience on the bus was just about the same as any away-game road trip I\’ve had with boys back home.  Some were listening to music, some were texting their girlfriends (each of them has one), and then most slept while the sun was still down.

We woke up so early so that we could make a 9 a.m. game.  This seemed pretty ridiculous that we had to play the morning game, because we had to come from the farthest place.  The players did not complain at all about this inconvenience, but it it really got to Greg.  He told the guys on the bus that we should get ready to run the score up on the host school because they\’ve done this to us every year we\’ve participated in the tournament.  When we arrived at 9:10 the referees warned me “比賽開始在五分鐘” (the game begins in five minutes).  So, in classic summer AAU tournament fashion, the TES Dragons skirmished to take their sweatpants and off and their game shoes on as Greg and scribbled the names and numbers of players onto the scoring sheet.  Before the buzzer first sounded to signal the start of the game, Greg admonished me to beware of the refereeing in this tournament, which he deemed \”consistently inconsistent.\”

He was right.  Over the course of the first two games of a four-game tournament, the referees, as well as the scorer\’s table (ran by students), came up with some calls and mistakes that I have not ever seen before.  Albeit the games followed FIBA rules, the logic supporting some of the mis-calls were just downright foreign to me.  For example, one referee believed that a player could dribble the ball while running out of bounds so long as the ball stayed in bounds.  Those who understand basketball well enough to be an official referee, at least in the states, learn the correct rule by elementary school.  This misunderstanding was met with several missed lane violations, non-shooting fouls after five previous in the quarter (FIBA rule is the sixth foul always results in two free throws), as well as very questionable foul allocations.

Despite all that, we won our first two, and moved on to play the host team, the Malone Mustangs.  First, the gym.  The environment the gym provided had an uncanny likeness to my old high school gym in Hatfield, Massachusetts (last renovated in 1970 or so).  Championship banners hung from the walls of the gym in English, although after squinting I could see that many of these titles were won against international schools in foreign locations, like Pusan and Hong Kong.  Interestingly, the floor scheme took from both the American and international styles.  The key – the area between the free throw line and the baseline – took after t

he American style, while the three point line was FIBA (slightly shorter than the NBA line, slightly longer than the college line).  Student fans held up signs reading \”GO MUSTANGS,\” in handwriting uninfluenced by Chinese writing.  If I had fallen asleep and woken up in this gym (not unreasonable to me), I may have guessed that I had returned back to the US.

I also noted that exactly half of the fourteen Mustangs were white.  Greg told me that a good number of these students were the kids of working missionaries in Taiwan.  It was interesting to see that these kids appeared to have no cultural assimilation.  While it appeared that missionaries\’ kids shared no bad relationships with the local students, it would really be impossible to discern them from any of the kids from my small, rural hometown.

As far as the refereeing went, the first two games were bad.  The third one was outright dangerous.  Jared, our leading scorer, picked up four fouls in about ten minutes of total play in the first two quarters, which was problematic because he scored all but about eight points in the half.  After complaining to the referee, Greg, having no tolerance for the behavior, yanked him.  He planned on leaving Jared out until the fourth quarter both as a lesson and a tactic to save him from fouling out.  We had to reconsider keeping him out as the game began to get out of hand; Malone outmatched us with size, and no one could really lock down the coach\’s son, standing at about six-foot-four with guard skills to boot.  We had to stick Jared back in to help rebound the basketball and stay in front of the Mustangs star player.  However, when we went to the scorers\’ table to check him in, they told us that he had already fouled.  This could not have been correct, as we had subbed him out, and the table had not told us that he had five fouls.  We argued, but went nowhere – we just had to play without him.  Malone began to pull away, and we continued to play hard, but although the Mustangs played a more physical game, somehow two more of our starters fouled out of the game.  Fortunately, Jeffery, who had been struggling to score the first two games, gave us a huge lift in the fourth quarter.  However, driving to the basket, Jeffery got practically clotheslined and dropped to the ground head first, hitting the court with a thud.  The referees called a normal foul, although Jeffery lay on the ground bleeding out of the back of his head.  Trainers came rushing to the floor and promptly treated the wound, then sent him to the hospital for stitches.  Then the game resumed.

At this point, four of our starters had either fouled out or had been hospitalized, while the host team found no foul trouble.  This was home-cooking at its ugliest.  Even worse, the Mustangs seemed to recognize it and take advantage of it.  During non-live free throws, they jumped into the lane for no other reason than to distract our shooters, and a fight almost broke out because one of their players elbowed Ethan in the throat on a dead ball with no call.  TES lived up to their reputation as a perennial champions of the sportsmanship award and kept their composure to scratch back and narrow the deficit to seven before the final buzzer sounded.  At the end of the game, the coach of Malone empathetically apologized to us for how poor of a game the referees officiated.

We ended up going 3-1 in the tournament for a third place finish out of seven.  In our consolation game, we received the same referees, and they performed almost as terribly, except this time their mistakes tended to go in our favor.  This time, though, one of the players on the opposing team literally butt heads with one of the referees. In the US, this would likely result in an ejection and maybe even a suspension.  Here, not even a technical was called.

After our final game, Greg approached the athletic director of Malone and addressed this issue.  He told him that he didn\’t care so much about the referees calling a biased game, but he wanted the games to at least be safe.  I agreed; it shouldn\’t be acceptable to elbow someone in the throat or headbutt a ref or level someone to the ground like it\’s WWE.  At this tournament, just at the four games we played, there were three injuries.  This can be controlled by the officials – it\’s their duty to calm the game down when it gets out of hand and the level of physicality is really at their discretion.  However, instead of owning up to the poor refereeing at their tournament, Dan, the athletic director, responded, \”How long have you been in Taiwan?\”

This is not a valid excuse.  Greg tells me that this is a perfect example of how efforts to connect people as global citizens runs into a contradiction.  He believes there will probably be problems when a Western entity like basketball is promoted in an Eastern community. Although Taiwan generally loves basketball, it lacks the feeder programs that lay the foundation for learning the game the right way, and Taiwan\’s deprivation of those things rear its head in tournaments like the one at Malone.  To bring basketball into Taiwan then blame the country for when it\’s done wrong is a rather colonialist way of thinking, and probably doesn\’t promote global citizenship.  It seems then that the way to use basketball as a proper unifying tool in Taiwan is to develop the game within the country.

Back on campus, Tim, the superintendent of TES, explained to me the challenges that surround basketball on the Taiwanese circuit.  Unlike in the US, schools have to work out their game schedules on their own.  There are far fewer institutions or committees, like that of the NCAA, for example, that structure the playing schedules of the schools.  Instead, schools basically rely on just each other to organize games and tournaments.  This brings about a motley of unique issues ranging from transportation, to refereeing, to volatile attitudes.  It could really be anything, as Greg describes tournaments like the ones at Malone to be very \”Wild West.\”  Tom says that the only way to manage problems like these in the long run is just to not tolerate them.  The policing comes from the schools, so if they want something changed, it\’s on them to put their foot down prevent problems from reoccurring.

While it remains in question whether TES returns to this tournament in the future, I have been reassured that the SACIS tournament at Aspire College in Hong Kong will be conducted much better.  It makes me feel bad that Jeremy will not be joining us because of being unable to play (as well as the sheer cost of traveling to this tournament), but I admire how well he\’s dealing with it along with having five stitches in the back of his head.  All in all, as a coach I was very proud to see how well the Dragons handled all the funny business to still go 3-1 and pick up a 3rd place spot this weekend.

Basketball is still a powerful unifying force.  Despite seeing some mishaps and quirks at the tournament it was still evident that the players loved to be a part of it, and for the most part, practiced great sportsmanship.  Regardless of how chippy some of the games got, players would always bow to the coaches and referees to thank them for the competition, as per custom in Taiwan.  Many players from opposing teams on all parts of the country would dap each other up, as the close knit basketball community keeps putting the same players together over the course of their careers. The main thing I take away from this weekend is that the power basketball has to connect people – Asian, American, north, south, whatever – is one to be respected and not taken for granted.  There are still plenty of ugliness that can be found in this beautiful game, and here. in Taiwan, as well as the rest of the world, its the duty of those around it preserve its values.