American Caucasian badminton players

i'm sorry but in my area caucasians think badminton is a wussy style of tennis.. they're so stupid its not funny... some thugged out kid who thought he was good at badminton said to my friend (a nationally ranked, top 10 player) that he could beat him and really believed it to be true.those kids are just so arrogant.. but think about it, a caucasian person steps into a badminton club, immediately they feel they no longer have the superiority in numbers, and the majority has become the minority.. obviously it is a barrier, i guess it calls for ppl who don't mind standing out from the rest of the group and believe in what they do.

 

I think one of the bigger problems for badminton in america is that all Colleges and Universities have a Badminton team, for women only. This only adds to the perception that badminton is a womans sport

This past US open most of the finals were played by europeans or americans(asian-american), this should have shown a lot of spectators that badminton can be played at a high level even though you are caucasian. Peter gade, Peter Rassmusen, Simon Archer etc. I am sure a lot of spectators found this exciting, up until...............The check, the prize money. Oh well all that work, training and giving up your life for a few thousand dollars.

That is the real problem, its not about race its about money. When badminton makes the money there will be champions from america, a gold medal in the Olympics is not going to do anything for badminton in the U.S.

 

Out of the 4 places I play at regularly, something like 90 different members, only 2 are US-born caucasians where the rest are asians (chinese, Indian, Malaysian, Korea,...etc) and immigrants from various countries in Europe.

Somehow people just need to be exposed to what badminton is really all about. The attitude that badminton is a "wussy" sport for skinny little asians is because of ignorance since none of them have never really seen a real game of badminton, and their own experience is when they were 5 and at the family picnic knocking a "bird" around with a 2 ft high net in between them.

As for the size, I don't really think that Americans are too big to play badminton. If you are tall, that's actually a huge advantage. If you are carrying a few spare tires around well, you aren't exactly fit to play any sport anyway, but I am around 200 lbs and modesty aside, I can be pretty darn fast on the court if I need to be.

Lately there have been a lot of discussions on the popularity of badminton and I've been thinking that perhaps the quickness of the game is actually a setback since a match can be over in matter of minutes. Hard to find commercial times for that and really advertise the event. Just a thought.

 

O man, my college didn't even have a women's team. If there was one, I'd put on a skirt and join.

 

As in East Coast, badminton is not as popular as in west. However, in the recent 1 or 2 years, I noticed that there are some positivie changes around where I live.

In my club, US born members significantly increased recently. I believe back then we only have no more than 3, but now, constantly I can see 6-8 of them practicing with us. Even though, most of them are beginners (2 are low int.), they did put in some efforts to get better. The first time, me and my partner played with the 2 low int. for a double match. Surprisely they have some stuff, and gave us some trouble at the beginning of the game. Even though, we left with a victory of big leads on board, we consider we had a good game. The two guys also asked us for some advise for how to improve their games.

Therefore, even though, most of US born players are still rookies in my club, I can see in the near future they can greatly improve themselves, if they can keep up with their work.

I like the fact, and I think that has something to do with the college (my club is a college club) offered badminton in PE courses these years.

 

It wasn't always this way. In my early years of completing--the 70s--those numbers were reversed--90% Caucasian, 5% Asian, 5% other. Virtually all of our national team members were Caucasian. In the last 20 years (and primarily the last 10), we've gone from one extreme to another.

Badminton has never had a high profile, but I do think it was more popular at the grass roots level 25-30 yrs. ago. A lot of it has to do with the schools and recreation departments, and ultimately their budgets. Some of the things I've seen pass away..

*In the 70s, virtually EVERY high school and junior college, and many 4-year colleges and universities had teams that played other schools in league competition. Some colleges even offered scholarships. By the end of the 70s, the junior college programs folded, but about that time, the high school teams went to co-ed. Back then, there was more of an emphasis on physical education, and a certain number of units were required for graduation. The PE classes filled up, and the team players came out of these classes. But when education budgets had to be cut, badminton was usually one of the casualties.

*Colleges, high schools, and local recreation departments made gyms available exclusively for badminton play for a few hours per week. Often it was free play, or maybe cost a dollar or two at most.

*Within a 100-mile radius, there was a B-C-D tournament every month.

*You could go into many sporting goods stores and buy a top quality Carlton, Kennex, or Yonex racket right off the shelf. You could have a racket strung at most of these places, too.

Badminton suffered at the grass roots level due to tough economic times, de-emphasis on physical education in the schools, and rising costs (insurance, energy, maintainence). There isn't the exposure for kids now like there was.

 

Hmmm...take a look at our (Canadian) National players and you will see that most of them are caucasians so I don't think that's true.

Even looking through the up and coming players (Juniors), you see a lot of non-Asian names.

 

Danish players

Guys (and ladies),

This is definetely not a question of being Caucasian or not.

Try looking at the current Danish team and even previous Danish teams.

Thomas Stuer Lauridsen (even though he is retired) is 6' 3.

Morten Frost almost the same.

And what about Jens Eriksen.

I would suggest that all sizes of men and women can play badminton and reach the very top.

Size can be an advantage, because of the greater reach.

However, size can also be a problem - especailly if you need to react very fast.

So, I guess the reason for the low percentage of caucasian badminton players in the US is simply that the sport has lost the battle of attention to other sports.. probably mostly to tennis.. What to do about that is a question that I will leave for others to reply.

 

Its all about background and culture.

For instance

In world tennis we are only just seeing a couple of black players at the top

IN english badminton we see very few black county players.

This does not mean black players have less genetic ability, its just that they are rare at all levels and there is no role model that is black.

Countries with less badminton popularity and success are European/American and have a greater average height as a race, amongst Danes / English you don't see the smallest players dominating the national teams, quite the opposite, from junior level through to international the average height is above average.

 

Re: Re: American Caucasian badminton players

10000% agree. I am in NY, where education system is kinda in trouble in recent years. With huge amount of immigrats, a lot of public schools have way too much students than its actual capacity. For example, the high school I graduated (about 6 yrs ago), now has 3500+ students, which the school was designed for 1500. With only 1 gym available, it's impossible to keep a badminton program going, even though, that high school has huge % of Asians.

I have to say, compare to a lot of other sports, badminton is relatively expensive to keep. Thinking of the rackets, birds, nets, and the facility. Plus, badminton can't exist just in 1 isolated school alone. without a competitive league or tournament, players can easily lost the motivation to keep up.

 

well a little off-topic but I am only 5'8" and back in high school we had this fashion show and I passed as a girl without anyone realizing it. Well, I was 175lbs back then.

 

Although my club is composed mostly of recreational players, there are about 6 old men who have bellies just like that and they are not embaressed. I always find it amusing when 4 of them play in the same game. They can only move in one direction and it will take them a few seconds to get back to position. But they've played each other so much that they know where the other guy will hit it and they anticipate and move there accordingly, so it evens out.

Phil