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ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
ASIAN ATHLETES LIMITED BY GENES OR NURTURE?
o debate on the prospects of Asian athletes in American sports passes without mention of Yao Ming, the Shanghai Sharks's 7-6, 265-pound center who recently led China to an 83-82 upset over the U.S. His prospects as the likely top pick of the 2002 NBA draft have been trumpeted by no lesser authorities than Michael Jordan and Bill Walton.
But the 21-year-old superstar is literally one in a billion (1.25 billion to be exact). Young Yao is the product, genetically and culturally, of a 6-10 father and 6-4 mother, both of whom played basketball for China's national teams. His case is as likely to confuse the nature-vs-nurture debate as to help resolve it. After all, his height may be merely the tip of the genetic iceberg when it comes to his promise as a world-class basketballer.
More familiar to Asian Americans are Michael Chang (5-9) who won the French Open at age 17, and Ichiro Suzuki (5-9), whose batting and base-stealing have lifted the Mariners from the basement to the heavens. Both seem endowed with standard physical equipment but have outperformed more powerful physiques. And on the women's side Kristi Yamaguchi, Michele Kwan, Seri Pak and legions of Chinese divers and gymnasts have shown that champions needn't be amazons.
But these successes haven't silenced those who argue that as a race Asians lack the genetic gifts to challenge black and white athletes in power sports. Asians are genetically smaller and weaker, they claim, and can only excel in sports calling for quickness and agility. They cite Asian underrepresentation in track and field, football, basketball, soccer, tennis, boxing and the like.
Will the future mirror the past? Are we genetically limited to excelling only in a few select sports or will changing social and economic conditions produce a generation of Asian superstars across the sports spectrum?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:57:50 PM)
I don't think asians are limited by genes or nurture. Well in my opinion maybe nurture because asian families do not nurture their kids to become pro athletes. Many black and white kids strive to be pro athletes and that is the only goal in life, and their parents support that. In asian families the priorities are more education and career, then sports. Sports don't last forever but education and career will. Just the other day I heard a news report that a high school basketball players father is suing the school for over a million dollars for potential lost wages as a pro athlete because the coach cut him or something. For god sake he is only in high school but suing for potential lost wages. I'm sure if asian kids spend 15 hours a day on their sport and very few hours in studying there will be more pro athletes.
Just my opinion, I have more but this could take all day.
asian jock
regularguy17@yahoo.com
Wednesday, December 19, 2001 at 11:18:01 (PST)
your just talking about oriental asians and not asians as a whole what do u think of the rest of the asians and there genetics if ur going to talk about asians then all asians should be included.
theguy
Thursday, December 13, 2001 at 19:27:39 (PST)
Don't forget Marat Safin - the 2000 U.S. Open Tennis Champion - who is of Tatar (or Tartar) origin. The Tatars are a Turco-Mongol people whose origins can be traced to northern Mongolia. Obviously, after centuries of racial mixing, he doesn't have any asian features. That can't be said of all Tatars.
General Kalmykov, Hetman of the Buzava Tribe
Thursday, November 01, 2001 at 19:45:30 (PST)
This is an article on Asian ball players that I found on the net. It's slightly outdated, but it will give firsttime viewers a good idea of the new breed of Asian baseball talent that is coming into North America.
APRIL10, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 14
[Go West, Young Man]
Lured by the chance to compete with the world's best, more and more of Asia's top players are jumping ship for America's big leagues
By TIM NOONAN Tokyo
When Hideo Nomo made his pitching debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995, he was something of a novelty. Sure, the guy could pitch, but what really energized fans on both sides of the Pacific was the fact that an Asian player had managed to make it in American big-league baseball. And not just make it, but dominate it. Nomo, who had pitched for the Kintetsu Buffaloes in Japan before heading West, won 13 games that year and was selected as the starting pitcher on the National League's All-Star team.
Fast forward to the present, and the novelty is long gone: the trickle of Asian talent to the U.S. is accelerating into a small flood. After Nomo came star Japanese pitchers Hideki Irabu and Masato Yoshii and the rise to glory of South Korean ace Chan Ho Park. Now, Asian talent is pouring through the American turnstile: this year, North American clubs will field 30 Asian-born players in the major and minor leagues. That's still a tiny percentage of the nearly 3,000 foreign players under contract (most of whom hail from Latin America)
...
With reporting by Michael Kitchen/Taipei
Asian Baseball Fan
Thursday, October 18, 2001 at 06:27:05 (PDT)
Chicago Guy said:
"There are plenty of White athletes the size of Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter, and Michael Jordan. Do you see those White athletes doing 360 dunks and dunking from the free throw line?"
Actually, brent Barry is the 1996 Nestle Slam Dunk Champion. He won it by pulling a Micheal Jordan a la 1988 -- He did the freethrow line dunk.
Haha
Friday, October 12, 2001 at 11:22:04 (PDT)
chicago guy:
you proved my point, which is at this time, you can't tell who is genetically superior (btw, i don't think any entire race is clearly superior to another in brain or body) by just looking at the end product.
if "blacks" were superior, then it shouldn't matter that they live in the US or in zimbabwe...the difference then, must be something cultural, training-related, nutrition, etc.
and asian guy is right...if everyone thought like you - in black and white absolute terms, i.e. blacks are faster, asians are smarter, etc., then all minorities would still be in the dumps like they were 80 years ago or so.
statistically, blacks in the US have not to this point, done as well in education as asians or whites...does that mean that a black person should believe and accept that he is genetically inferior mentally because of his race??? absolutely not! and the smae logic should apply to asians and sports
ck
Thursday, October 11, 2001 at 18:05:59 (PDT)
Wait I think we are confusing two points. First is the average size of asians. It is pretty much a common knownledge that asian immigrants from southern asia are shorter and those from Northern Asia are slightly taller. With more immigrants coming to the USA from Northern Asia the sterotype will slowly dimish on size.
The second point is sports. That is more of a cultural phenomenon. You are selecting sports that originated in the west, where most asian kids might not have the facilities or the history to excel at the sport.
I use to compete in Tae Kwon Doe in the USA under the '88 Olympic bronze medalist Master Han Kwon Lee. I would not have excelled at the sport if I did not train under Master Han Kwon Lee at starting I was 18. However, my success in the sport was also attributed to my train in tradition Chinese Kung-Fu starting at age 5. So as you see sucess in sports is having access to the proper training when you are young.
If you look at swimming, diving, tae kwon do, judo, backminton, table tennis, gymanastics in olympic history you will see asian sucess. But it has very little to do with genetics. It is all about the altheletic training programs.
Because the Grand-master of Chess is a westerner doesn't mean Asian are stupid. It just mean Asian prefer playing Chinese Chess...If you get what I mean.
AC dropout
Thursday, October 11, 2001 at 12:16:25 (PDT)
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