Recently, news of Jeremy Lin, an Asian American basketball player for the Knicks has been popping up in my Facebook news feed. And now today, I saw it on Yahoo news. This guy intrigues me for three reasons.
1. It's basketball and I love basketball.
2. He's an Asian American stepping into a sport that's dominated mostly by African Americans and White Americans.
3. He's Christian.
If any of you have ever watched a basketball game, especially an NBA basketball game, you know that the court is not often filled with Asian Americans, if at all. There have been some other Asian American stars, like Yao Ming (I believe he's the most recent), but that's one out of the many players on the court. But if you compare other famous basketball names, like Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Shaquille O'Neil, Dwayne Wade, Kevin Durant, and Steve Nash, there seems to be no Asians in the game.
Now, Jeremy Lin is all over the news and they're calling it "Linsanity". This guy is the classic story of "player gets over looked, finally gets a chance to play, and now he's rocking the NBA world". But better yet, he's an Asian American player, so he also stands out for those reasons. In fact, there's been some major controversies already.
Here's an article where ESPN is apologizing because one of its reporters wrote an article that was titled "Chink in the armor". They fired the reporter and suspended a couple of other employees.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-jeremy-lin-espn-headline-20120220,0,3952849.story
Now, Lin is getting so much coverage and attention, and with fear of more racial slurs and comments being made, they actually made guidelines concerning his media coverage:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/asian-american-journalists-association-releases-guidelines-jeremy-lin-155822233.html
I read some of the comments on this past article. One person said, "Why it's such a big deal that he's an Asian American? Just call him American." And naturally, there were a slew of replies, but I thought, "I remember I used to think like that." But the fact of the matter is, being an Asian American means they grew up differently than an African American, White American, Mexican American, or Native American. Yes, we live in America, but we aren't this huge "melting pot" everything thinks of us to be. The recent analogy I heard was more like a salad bowl. There's a bunch of different pieces, but they aren't making one homogenous culture.
I can go on and on about race and culture. Any of you who know me, know how passionate I can get about appreciating and respecting cultural differences and learning to understand them. But I'm going to let someone else explain it. Out of all the articles to read, I think you should all read this one. This isn't just a news article, this is how Jeremy Lin's career, a career of an Asian American, is personally affecting someone:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/sports/basketball/the-knicks-jeremy-lin-faith-pride-and-points.html?_r=2
"The feelings the Lin phenomenon instill in me are orders of magnitude greater because he is an Asian-American, like me, whose parents were immigrants to this country, like mine. He grew up, like me, in the United States, speaking English; his Chinese, like mine, could use improvement."
I enjoy playing basketball and have played with various different groups. Most of the time, I'm usually the one of 2 females amongst 7 or 9 guys. In the past 6 months, a lot of the people I play with are Asian. I made a joke to someone that said, "Dang. We could call our team the 5 Chinamen, 2 white girls, and... Ed?" We all laughed, but now that I look back, I wonder how my basketball loving Asian friends feel about Lin. Are they feeling a sense of pride describe in the above article? Are they also watching his career closing and hoping to become like him?
Whatever happens to Jeremy Lin, I wish the best for him. I think it's awesome that he's getting all of this attention, and I hope more of my Asian friends continue to play basketball and are inspired by the "Linsanity".
I'll also be curious as to see how his faith plays out on the court. To me, he doesn't have to be wearing crosses or talking about Jesus every time a reporter talks to him. I'll see his faith in the way he plays. If you have ever played sports seriously, you'll know that when you're on the court, your focus is on the game and playing it right, respecting your teammates and your opponents. I've played on too many teams to know about the potty mouths and horrible events that can go on when a player gets out of line. It ruins the game and shows the poor spirit of the player.
So here's to Jeremy Lin. I hope his career continues to go well. I'm excited to see what happens to him.
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New addition:
Lin is getting so much attention, that even Ben & Jerry's named an ice cream after him.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/ben-jerry-replaces-fortune-cookies-lin-sanity-flavor-162728739.html
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