[Editor’s Note: The Santa Barbara Breakers, champions of the West Coast Pro Basketball League, were invited by the Chinese government to play 12 games Sept. 19 through Oct. 5. This is one in a series of articles by Breakers coach Curt Pickering as he reflects on the experience.]
Have you ever thought what it would be like to be a rock star and go on the road for a month traveling in planes, trains, automobiles and buses? That is what we experienced.
After our heartbreaking, floor-slipping loss in Qianshan, we left after the game for a five-hour bus trip to Nanjing. This allowed us to sleep on the bus, which I failed to do, through the early night and then check into a hotel for five hours of sleep. Shame on Qianshan for not building an airport next to their new arena!
Nonetheless, we then boarded a plane for Shengyang, but just for boredom’s sake, a quick bus trip to the city of Fuxin. Fuxin was a small town of 4.5 million. Small, you ask? I learned during this trip that there are 99 cities in China with a population no less than 3 million residents. The United States has only nine.
We celebrated our completed trip at Kentucky Fried Chicken. The players were jubilant at the sight of “good home cooking.” It must have been the right recipe for winning. We played the Romanians again and this time spanked them 53-47. That sounds like a halftime score. The fact is, we are playing by FIBA rules, the international guidelines.
FIBA plays four 10-minute quarters, eight minutes less than the NBA and the same as college basketball. Throw in the fact that the Romanians held the ball a great deal on offense and that sums up the low score.
What was most intriguing about this game was not the sellout crowd of 7,000, but the fact that the game was shown live on China television throughout the country. I’m not going to fib and say all 2 billion residents of China watched the game, but more colorful and sweet softening to the ears was the Fuxin Pep Band playing the American classic folksong “Oh, Susannah.” They then led into one of our favorites, “Jingle Bells.” Was it a mockery of the United States’ representative team, the Santa Barbara Breakers? Absolutely not! But it certainly threw us off, as it was Sept. 20, not Dec. 20.
The fans mobbed the players after the game and of humorous significance, guard Tim Taylor ran up into the stands and led about 100 young teenagers in shouting “USA, USA, USA!” It was a fun way to win our first game in China and feel just a little bit at home in the process.
The following morning, we took a 15-minute ride to the Chinese Basketball Academy. It is the only academy in China that houses more than 500 boys and girls ages 13 to 17. They live there year-round, honing their basketball skills while taking up basic classroom studies. It is a government-supported program to induce the development and quality of Chinese basketball. We were besieged by all 500 or more as we got off the bus and headed into the large gymnasium.
Our players Mark Dawson, Keith Closs and Allan Purnell put on quite an entertaining dunking show, one-on-one contests and signing autographs for the next hour.
That was followed by a meeting with the Chinese coaches, who gave me and each of our players several beautiful gifts. One thing I have learned, the Chinese are not selfish. They are very generous in giving special gifts that will long be remembered.
We later returned to the hotel for lunch, a nap, massages and left for the Fuxin Arena for another game against the Romanians and anticipation of what the Fuxin Pep Band might have in store for us this evening. Well, it did not disappoint us. Not only did it do a remix of “Oh, Susannah,” it added “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”
Did we get the same results that evening on the basketball court? Yes, we did. A 73-68 victory.
Are we now going to be playing Christmas songs and “Oh, Susannah” before every Breaker game in Santa Barbara in the months of April, May and June? Yes, we are!
Coming up: Climbing the Great Wall of China.
Curt Pickering is coach of the Santa Barbara Breakers.