Howard Bach - USA's Olympian

San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, May 25, 2008

2008 SUMMER OLYMPICS: Howard Bach

Getting a grip on life
Former bad boy from San Francisco takes badminton to a new level in U.S.

John Crumpacker,
Chronicle Staff Writer

Children are kicking a bright orange ball around on the small asphalt yard at Spring Valley Elementary School on Russian Hill, the oldest public school in California.

Twenty years ago, Howard Bach was one of those kids, attending this school while growing up in this dense neighborhood where an iconic San Francisco sound became part of the landscape of the ear.

"The cable cars were like roosters. They woke me up every morning," said Bach, now 29 and a two-time U.S. Olympian in badminton.

"I used to be pretty good at badminton myself," said Lonnie Chin, then and now the principal of Spring Valley.

Bach remembered her as the lady in charge of the school. Chin could not claim to remember the rambunctious little boy but now that he's grown up to be an Olympic athlete from the old school, she fetched her camera for a photo-op to be used in a book commemorating the 155th anniversary of Spring Valley.

Bach's family immigrated to San Francisco in 1982 from Vietnam and in time established a laundry and dry cleaning business. Howard was the delivery boy. His growing-up years fell somewhere between ridiculously idyllic and deeply troubled.

By his own admission, Bach was something of a bad boy growing up in the city, a ne'er-do-well given to youthful acts of the misdemeanor variety.
One of his favorites used to be hanging out near Hyde and Jackson streets waiting to jump on the side of an electric MUNI bus and hang by his fingertips while his FAST pass remained in his pocket.

"I could have lost my fingers," said Bach, who would go on to use those fingers to wrap around a badminton racket and become a world champion and two-time Olympian. "I thought it was cool back then. I was hanging out with the wrong crowd, doing illegal things but not being caught. It was crazy, stupid things you do, when you look back. That was my way of associating with my surroundings."

Bach attended Galileo High School at the time - or rather didn't attend. He was not a focused or motivated young man at that point in his life.

"I wouldn't want to get into details," he said of his checkered teenage past. "By law, you could categorize it as illegal. Not something I'm proud of."

His parents and four sisters are proud of him now, as well as his fiancee, Penelope Salac. Bach was a 2004 Olympian and a 2005 world champion; in a couple months he'll march in the Opening Ceremonies in Beijing as a 2008 Olympian. He will compete in men's doubles with partner Bob Malaythong and in mixed doubles with Eva Lee.

A medal on his mind

"I know what I want at the Olympics," Bach said. "I want to medal. In 2004, I was just happy to be there."

Malaythong said of his doubles partner, "He brings a lot of experience to the sport. We're doing well together. As professional athletes, you need to be fit, built for long-term use. The closest thing is tennis, but we exert more than in tennis. We run more than tennis. We deserve to be recognized in the same sense."

Bach now lives and trains in the city of Orange in Orange County, along with his two doubles partners. He was in Millbrae for the Bay Badminton Club Championships over the weekend, a tune-up competition for the summer ahead.

"Howard is a fantastic player. He's got a tremendous amount of talent," said Ben Lee, owner of the Bay Badminton Club and a 1992 Olympian in the sport. "He has certainly done better than any U.S. player has ever done in terms of winning the 2005 World Championship. He's taken the game to the next level here in the U.S."

Bach, who had taken up badminton at 9, turned his life around at 16 when he went to live at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Co., where he graduated from high school, became an elite competitor and found a purpose.

"That was pretty much the turning point in my life," he said. "The Olympics gave me a vision. You need that, short term and long term. If you don't have a goal, you can't hit the target."

Quickness a prerequisite

Or smash that shuttlecock over the net, as the case may be. At 5-foot-6 and 160 pounds, slightly bow-legged, Bach possesses the quick reactions the sport requires and also the stamina to prosper in an extended three-set match.

Bach is an American success story that started in Vietnam. Or, as he classifies himself, "An ethnic Chinese born in Vietnam with a German-sounding name holding a U.S. passport."

His surname in Chinese means "White," which in the Vietnamese language is spelled "Bach."

His father, Sencan Bach, owned clothing and glass manufacturing businesses in Vietnam. He eventually fell afoul of the government and was jailed for a period of time that his son termed "dramatic."

Bach, who was born in Ho Chi Minh City in 1979, left with his family when he was 3. The family eventually settled in San Francisco after refugee stops in the Philippines and Thailand.

"My dad always wanted to represent his country," Bach said of Sencan, a badminton player in his youth. "My dad missed out on his chance. My dad wanted me to represent the U.S. in badminton."

Finally beat dad

Bach learned the game at the Leavenworth YMCA and beat his father for the first time when he was 13.

"I hated losing," he said. "You have to be an all-around athlete. It's not easy. You've got to have quick, lightning reflexes and hand-eye coordination. You have to do aerobic and anaerobic work."

The makers of the sports drink Vitamin Water put those qualities to work in a television commercial that became controversial among some Asians. Bach and Malaythong, U.S. citizens, were portrayed as a Chinese team competing against an "American" doubles team of Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher and Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz, who by the way was born in the Dominican Republic.

In the commercial, Urlacher slams the shuttlecock across the net with such force it becomes embedded in Malaythong's leg for a rousing victory by the "Americans."

"It's a disgrace to the sport," Bach said. "It wasn't being taken seriously. We are the American team. We were portrayed as the Chinese team."
Father went through ordeal

Bach is preparing for the Beijing Olympics in a much better frame of mind than he did for Athens in 2004. Four years ago, his father fell into a diabetic coma and was given a 20-percent chance of living. His son was told to start looking for coffins. Doctors nevertheless encouraged Bach to talk to his father and keep talking, even though he was in a coma.

"He started slowly moving his fingers and he woke up," Bach said. "Dad said, 'Keep talking. I'm doing this for you.' That was truly amazing. I was getting ready to get the coffin. He was that close."

This was 1 1/2 months before the start of the Athens Olympics. Sencan Bach is doing well now and will be in Beijing to watch his son compete.

"He's 80 percent recovered," Bach said. "We're just happy he's still alive."
For Bach, fingers that once gripped the side of a MUNI bus now grip the badminton racket of an Olympian, a reformed bad boy who made good.

The Bach bio

Age: 29
Hometown: San Francisco
Defining moment: Won the 2005 Doubles International Championship with partner Tony Gunawan, marking the first time an American team had ever medaled in a major tournament.