Getting In The Game
After decades of watching from the sidelines, Asian collegiate athletes are slowly changing perceptions
By Lydia Lum
Last season, news media from around the country fixated on the University of Southern California football team, the speculation escalating with each game. Would they successfully defend their title as national champions? Would star running back Reggie Bush win the Heisman Trophy or would quarterback Matt Leinart win the award for the second straight year?
Attention was also paid to brothers Ryan and Brandon Ting — for the mere fact they were on the team. As two of only a handful of Asian-Pacific Islanders (APIs) in college football, the young men are used to stereotypes.
Historically, the absence of APIs from college sports has been due largely to the lack of role models in professional and amateur leagues. For years, coaches on the recruiting trail overlooked Asian athletes, often dismissing them as too small, too slow and too wrapped up in their studies. API parents, meanwhile, often discouraged their children from becoming jocks out of fear they would derail their grades and, consequently, their job prospects. Some sports pundits believe that because some APIs earn above-average family incomes, they aren’t as motivated to pursue sports as a pathway to college. And many APIs still tend to view sports more as recreation than as a potential career field, which might explain why APIs are more likely to participate in lower-revenue sports, not the big money programs.
Certainly, APIs are quite visible on college campuses, especially on the West Coast. They comprise about 50 percent of the student population at the University of California, Irvine, and other UC campuses aren’t far behind. But they made up less than 2 percent of football, basketball and baseball players in the 2003-2004 academic year, according to the most recent statistics from the NCAA. The numbers crept up in sports like men’s tennis and men’s volleyball, where 5 percent of the athletes were APIs. But only a handful of sports that year featured double-digit participation from Asian athletes. Asians represented 21 percent of female badminton players, 13 percent of female archers, 14 percent of female fencers and 13 percent of male fencers.
