Zhang Cal Bears article from the Merc

Cal basketball players Jerome Randle and Max Zhang are far from home but not far from family

By Jeff Faraudo

jfaraudo@bayareanewsgroup.com
Posted: 12/24/2009 09:19:43 PM PST
Updated: 12/24/2009 11:18:13 PM PST



Cal basketball player Max Zhang sits down for lunch with mom Lixin Gong for
lunch with mom Lixin Gong for a home cooked meal in Berkeley, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009. Lixin Gong is spending several months living with Max, helping him eat right and take care of himself so he can improve his weight and strength for basketaball.... (KRISTOPHER SKINNER)

In the vernacular of sports, teams often refer to themselves as families. For Cal basketball players Jerome Randle and Max Zhang, the definition goes beyond hyperbole.

Randle, a 5-foot-10 senior guard from Chicago, and Zhang, a 7-foot-2 sophomore center from China, each has each brought a piece of home to Berkeley.

Randle, 22, plucked his brother Jeremy, 19, from the perils of Chicago's South Side, and the two have lived together off campus since July 2008.

Zhang is enjoying the company — and home cooking — of his mother, Lixin Gong, who is in the midst of a three-month stay with her son for the second year in a row.

"We're best friends," Jerome Randle said of the relationship he has with his brother. "It's been good. I don't think I could have made a better decision."

Zhang's mother misses her husband but has no doubts about the commitment she has made to her son's development.

"In Chinese culture, it doesn't matter how big, how old you get, your parents see you as a little kid all the time," Zhang, 22, said, interpreting his mother's Chinese words.

It was Zhang's father who last year suggested that his wife come to the United States for a prolonged visit with their only child. Zhang arrived on campus in the fall of 2007 carrying just 208 pounds on the tallest frame ever to wear a Cal basketball uniform. He needed to gain weight and strength.

"I didn't really take care of myself very well in terms
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of food," Zhang said of living in the dorms during his freshman year. "I'm pretty skinny. She knows what I like to eat and she knows the nutrition part. She thinks if I want to gain weight, I need to eat the meals she cooks."

Coach Mike Montgomery wrote a letter to the U.S. Embassy in the summer of 2008, seeking a visitor visa for Zhang's mother so she could cook for her son.

Gong spent three months here last season and will complete a similar visit in early January before returning home. She plans to return the next two seasons.

Max tries to eat four or five meals a day, many prepared by his mother. Asked if she can see a physical difference in her son, Gong said, "A little bit."

In fact, Zhang's weight is now 245.

"I think it helps," said Zhang, who wants to gain 15 more pounds over the next two years.

Zhang's mother speaks virtually no English but spends her days reading or chatting online with friends in China. She also has friends here with roots in China, and they spend time together.

One thing she hasn't done during this visit is attend any of her son's games.

"I said to Max last year, 'I'd like to meet your mom. Is she coming to a game?' " Montgomery recalled. "He said, 'No, she's afraid she'll make me nervous.' Max is getting older now, and he's probably not as nervous anymore."

Try selling that to his mother.

"She thinks if she shows up I'll try to do more than I can do or get nervous,'' Max confirmed.

But with Zhang starting and becoming more comfortable, Mom is planning to visit Haas Pavilion on game night soon, perhaps for Monday's Golden Bear Classic.

Balling the ABA Shark Way

Balling the ABA Shark Way

Posted By ngunji On December 16, 2009 @ 4:11 pm In English, Sports | No Comments
Omura shows flashes of brilliance during his sporadic playing time with the Compton Cobras. Kid is lightning quick. (Photos by JORDAN IKEDA/Rafu Shimpo) [1]

Omura shows flashes of brilliance during his sporadic playing time with the Compton Cobras. Kid is lightning quick. (Photos by JORDAN IKEDA/Rafu Shimpo)

By JORDAN IKEDA

Rafu Sports Editor

===

For those who read my writing, you know that I am a basketball junkie. So when I received an email from the Compton Cobras of the ABA telling me about a 5’6” Japa­nese point guard who was averaging 20 points and five assists per game, I naturally had to check it out.

Now, when I say ABA, I’m not talking about the league that made Dr. J famous (or vice versa) and was later absorbed into the current NBA. I’m talking about the new ABA, the one formed in 1999, that features around 50 teams from Pikeville, Kentucky to Elmira, New York, to Folsom, California and everywhere in between. A league with teams named the Whirlwind and the Beach Ballers and Pegasus and Fuel.

The only thing that remains the same is the red, white and blue ball.

The Cobras, Compton’s first and only professional basketball team, was a part of the 2009/2010 ABA expansion. In they’re first game of the season, the Cobras played at Grant High School near my apartment, so I figured I’d go check out this high-scoring, starting guard from Japan.

The guard in question is Jangki Che Omura, who everyone associated with the team calls Shouki (“The Shark”). He hails from Saga near Kyushu and attended Osaka College. He just turned 24 on Dec. 8.

Grant’s gym was nearly half full, most likely because the Cobras were playing the L.A. Slam, a team that fea­tures popular westcoast rapper The Game as its starting small forward.

While I was quite certain there was no way a player shorter than me could be averaging 20 and 5 against semi-pro athletes, I reserved hope that he was lightning quick and great at distributing the ball.

I should have tempered my expectations even more. While Omura is quick and plays harassing defense, he’s really small and got overpowered by the bigger, and in all honesty, blacker athletes. He saw maybe two minutes of game time, during which he turned the ball over twice and didn’t shoot. Needless to say, I was quite disap­pointed.

In all honesty, the new ABA is not a stable enterprise. Two years ago, 20 teams folded within the first five weeks. Last year, the league’s most successful franchise by attendance, the Halifax Rainmen, left the ABA because too many teams didn’t show up for games.

Case in point, the league’s official website has been expired and the stats page has been shut down due to a financial dispute.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t value there. While the two games I went to watch were reffed about as differently as humanly possible, basketball is basketball in all of its flawed forms. ABA basketball is all about scoring. Teams like to toss up threes early in the shot clock and fast break at every opportunity. Defense can and will extend the full length of the court, but rarely continues once one’s man gets by him. Games can get chaotic, but it is within this chaos that viewers can find gems of beauty.
Omura works extra hard on the defensive end to make up for a lack of size and strength. [2]

Omura works extra hard on the defensive end to make up for a lack of size and strength.

Guys talking trash. A sweet dime. A shooter catching fire and hitting five triples in a row. The crowd getting hostile. And of course, the novelty of a 5’6” Japanese guard trying his damndest to fight through screens and defend players nearly a foot taller than him.

“The difference is size and power,” Shouki told the Rafu Shimpo. “Japanese style is more pass, pass, move. Here, it’s more one-on-one. I will never have size, but I just have to run more than anybody.”

Omura lifts weights every day and trains on the beach with Yuta Imada, the strength and conditioning coach for the Cobras. He puts in the hard work because he already has his sights set on loftier goals.

Next year, he wants to try for the NBDL (NBA Development League), and then, like all aspiring basketball players, this “shark” dares to dream about the NBA.

And while unlikely is the first word that springs to mind, I reserve the right, as does Shouki, to dream big. With the changing of the hand check rules in the NBA, and the sud­den rise of quick point guards who can pass or athletic combo guards who can score, who knows what the future has in store?

After all, beauty can also be found in the form of accomplishment.

“My dream was to play profes­sional basketball here in the States,” Shouki said.

Omura’s doing just that, living his dream and he’s doing it in the ABA.

Article printed from Rafu Shimpo: http://rafu.com/news

URL to article: http://rafu.com/news/?p=7708

A three-point shot by Brendon Galipon with 3 minutes, 5 seconds remaining brought the Eagles to within a basket at 51-49,

Bullpups hold on
By Richard de Give
rdegive@HanfordSentinel.com

If you could say one thing about Washington High School after Wednesday's game, it's this: They didn't leave their hearts - or their game - in San Francisco.

After traveling much of the day, the Eagles hung with the Hanford High most of the night before falling 59-53 to conclude the first night of action in the Hanford Rotational tournament.

Wednesday also marked the first of four days for the Eagles in Hanford, where they'll be housed with members of the Bullpup basketball team for the duration.

They'll also attend classes at HHS as well as visit a dairy farm, the Adventure Park amusement complex and, of course, Superior Dairy Products Co.

"It's good for us to see some different styles of play and it's a cultural experince for us," said Washington coach Jolinko Lassiter, who recalls playing in this tournament in his day as one of the highlights of the year.








For Hanford coach Brad Felder, whose team improved to 3-0 on the season, it may as well have been a nightmare.

"I didn't think we played well tonight," he said. "We moved forward the first two games, but in this one we stood still or fell back."

The Bullpups led most of the way, taking the lead for good midway through the second quarter on a 3-point shot by Joseph Yarbrough, but were never were able to shake Washington, either.

Hanford led 26-22 at intermission and built the lead as high as 11 midway through the third quarter, only to see Washington close the gap again.

A three-point shot by Brendon Galipon with 3 minutes, 5 seconds remaining brought the Eagles to within a basket at 51-49, but Washington managed just three points, all from the line by Johnny Fu, the rest of the way.

Kiefer Rose led Hanford with 20 points. He was joined in double figures by Evan Austin with 12 points.

Beau Felder had eight rebounds and Brad Simas seven. Rose also had five steals.

Hanford was 17-of-29 from the free throw line.

Galipon led Washington with 18 points and Byron Jones added 10.

In other games, Clovis defeated Delano and Central beat Bullard 77-69.

A schedule change has been made to accommodate Bullard, whose football team plays for the Central Section Division I title Friday night. Today, Washington plays Delano at 4:30 p.m., Clovis plays Central at 6 p.m. and Hanford meets Bullard at 7:30 p.m.

Friday, it's Bullard-Washington at 4:30 p.m., Delano-Central at 6 p.m and Hanford-Clovis at 7:30 p.m.

Immigrant dream plays out through son

Brian Pohorylo/Icon SMI
Want athleticism? How about leaping high into the sky to block a shot by UConn's Jerome Dyson.










AP Photo/Fred Beckham In a close loss to UConn on Sunday, Jeremy Lin scored 30 points and grabbed 9 rebounds.








Thursday, December 10, 2009
Immigrant dream plays out through son
By Dana O'Neil
ESPN.com

STORRS, Conn. -- The jump hook he used to score his first bucket of the game? That came from Kareem.

Jeremy Lin
In a close loss to UConn on Sunday, Jeremy Lin scored 30 points and grabbed 9 rebounds.

The perfect form on his jumper? Larry Bird deserves credit for that.

The power end-to-end drive with a dunk to finish? Vintage Dr. J.

The sweet dribble penetration and kickout? Score one for Magic.

As Jeremy Lin dissected and bisected Connecticut to the tune of 30 points Sunday afternoon, his father sat in front of a computer screen on the other side of the country, watching his videotape library of NBA greats come to life in the form of his son.

All those years Gie-Ming Lin spent rewinding his tapes so he could teach himself how to play a game he never even saw until he was an adult? All those hours spent in the local Y with his boys, schooling them in fundamentals over and over, building muscle memory without even knowing what the term meant? That silly dream, the one in which his children would fall in love with basketball as much as he had?

There it was, borne out in a gym in Storrs, Conn.

"Every time he did something good, they'd play it over and over again," Gie-Ming said from his home in Palo Alto, Calif. "I kept watching, and they kept showing him."

Soon the rest of the college basketball world might be turning its collective eye toward Jeremy Lin. Think about what the senior has done just this week for Harvard, which is off to its best start (7-2) in 25 years.

In keeping his team in the game right to the end, Lin scored a career-high 30 points and grabbed 9 boards in a 79-73 loss to No. 12 UConn. Then, in the Crimson's 74-67 upset at Boston College on Wednesday -- the second straight season Harvard has beaten BC -- Lin contributed 25 points.

So in two games against New England's annual NCAA tournament participants, Lin scored 55 points and shot 64 percent from the field and 80 percent from the free throw line.

He boasts an all-around repertoire rarely on display. Last season Lin was the only player in the nation to rank among the top 10 players in his conference in points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, field goal percentage, free throw percentage and 3-point percentage.

This year? He is merely second in the Ivy League in scoring (18.6 points), 10th in rebounding (5.3), fifth in field goal percentage (51.6 percent), third in assists (4.6), second in steals (2.4), sixth in blocked shots (1.2) and top of the pile in turning the heads of esteemed basketball minds, including Hall of Famer Jim Calhoun.

Jeremy Lin
Want athleticism? How about leaping high into the sky to block a shot by UConn's Jerome Dyson.

"I've seen a lot of teams come through here, and he could play for any of them," the longtime UConn coach said of Lin. "He's got great, great composure on the court. He knows how to play."

And he learned how to play thanks to his father's determination.

Jeremy is not the product of some Marv Marinovich in high-tops, desperate to cultivate the perfect basketball player, but rather a 5-foot-6 immigrant who long ago fell in love with a game and realized that in that game, his own children could gain entry into mainstream America.

Gie-Ming Lin was born in Taiwan, where academics were stressed and athletics ignored. He caught an occasional glimpse of basketball and, for reasons he can't explain, was immediately smitten with the game.

He dreamed of coming to the United States for two reasons: to complete his Ph.D. and "to watch the NBA."

That happened in 1977 when Gie-Ming enrolled at Purdue University for his doctorate in computer engineering. He flipped on the television, and there it was: the NBA in all its late-1970s glory. Kareem, Moses and Dr. J, with Jordan, Bird and Magic waiting in the wings.

"My dad," Jeremy said, "is a complete basketball junkie."

Gie-Ming's first job took him to Los Angeles, where the grueling demands and long hours had him searching for some sort of athletic release.

"I thought it would be great to play basketball," Gie-Ming said.

Only problem? He didn't have the slightest idea how. He had never picked up a ball in his life.

So he turned his attention back to those gripping NBA games. Armed with videotapes of his favorite players, Gie-Ming studied the game with the same fervor he studied for his Ph.D.

"I would just imitate them over and over; I got my hook shot from Kareem," Gie-Ming said, laughing.

It took him years to feel comfortable enough to play in a pickup game, and as he bided his time he decided then -- long before he even had children -- that his own kids would grow up knowing the game from an early age.

When first-born Joshua turned 5, Gie-Ming carted him to the local Y to begin teaching him those valuable skills stored on his videotapes.

Jeremy followed, and then youngest brother Joseph joined in what became a three-nights-a-week routine. The boys would finish their homework and around 8:30 head to the Y with their father for 90 minutes of drills or mini-games.

Forget that all of the players on those videos had long since retired, that the guy with Kareem's hook shot wouldn't hit Abdul-Jabbar's armpit. Gie-Ming recognized what so many other youth coaches have forgotten over time: The foundation for success is the basics.

"I realized if I brought them from a young age it would be like second nature for them," Gie-Ming said. "If they had the fundamentals, the rest would be easy."

Jeremy Lin Family
Jeremy, top right, and his brothers Joshua and Joseph grew up in a hoops-loving family.

His passion soon became their passion, and as the boys grew up, those 90-minute sessions would turn into wee-hour wars, with the boys scrounging for whatever gym they could find to play.

Joshua would star at Henry M. Gunn High School. Jeremy would enroll at rival Palo Alto High, where Joseph is now a senior.

Jeremy was special. He had his father's passion, his own inner motivation and a frame that would sprout to 6-foot-3. A good enough scorer to play 2-guard, Jeremy also was a savvy enough playmaker -- thanks to his dad and Magic -- to play the point. He's a solid outside shooter, but his dad, Julius and Kareem conspired to give him a reliable game around the rim.

In other words, he was otherworldly, a kid so talented that his freshman coach stood up at the team banquet and declared, "Jeremy has a better skill set than anyone I've ever seen at his age."

Named to the varsity as a freshman, Jeremy would earn honors as sophomore of the year and two-time most valuable player in his league.

Immersed in the game as he was, Jeremy never thought he was anything but a normal kid who liked basketball.

Until, that is, the insults came at him, the taunts to go back to China or open his eyes.

He was an Asian-American basketball player, an oddity and a curiosity in the cruel world of high school, where nothing is safer than being like everyone else.

"It was definitely a lot tougher for me growing up," he said. "There was just an overall lack of respect. People didn't think I could play."

His father offered sage advice.

"I told him people are going to say things to him, but he had to stay calm and not get excited by these words; they are only words," Gie-Ming said. "I told him to just win the game for your school and people will respect you."

Once more, Gie-Ming was right. In his senior season Jeremy averaged 15 points, 7 assists, 6 rebounds and 5 steals, leading Palo Alto to a 32-1 record and a stunning 51-47 victory over nationally ranked Mater Dei in the CIF Division II state championship game.

Along the way, he converted some of the people who had mocked him. When Palo Alto played Mater Dei, students from both Jeremy's high school and rival Henry M. Gunn High crowded a local pizza joint to cheer for Jeremy and his team.

Converting people outside Northern California was more difficult. By his senior season, Lin was the runaway choice for player of the year by virtually every California publication. Yet he didn't receive a single Division I scholarship offer.

Lin doesn't know why, but believes his ethnicity played a part.

Asian-Americans make up just 0.4 percent of Division I basketball rosters, according to the latest NCAA numbers. That equates to 20 players out of 5,051.

Jeremy Lin
In back-to-back wins over Boston College, Lin has scored a combined 52 points on 18-of-26 shooting.

Harvard offered an education with a hefty price tag. (The Ivy League offers no athletic scholarships.) But it also offered the chance to play Division I ball. So Lin went without hesitation.

Four extremely successful years into his college career, he now finds himself packaged into an uncomfortable box. Lin is at once proud and frustrated with his place as the flag-bearer for Asian-American basketball players.

The Harvard uniform, the Asian background, it all still makes Jeremy something of a novelty. What he longs for most of all is to be a basketball player.

Not an Asian-American basketball player, just a basketball player.

"Jeremy has been one of the better players in the country for a while now," said Harvard coach Tommy Amaker, who, as a Duke graduate and former head coach at both Seton Hall and Michigan, knows a thing or two about talent. "He's as consistent as anyone in the game. People who haven't seen him are wowed by what they see, but we aren't. What you see is who he is."

But stereotypes die hard and remain propagated by the ignorant. At UConn, as Jeremy stepped to the free throw line for the first time, one disgraceful student chanted, "Won-ton soup."

"I do get tired of it; I just want to play," Lin said. "But I've also come to accept it and embrace it. If I help other kids, than it's worth it."

In their 109-year history, the Crimson have never won an Ivy League title and have managed only three second-place finishes. They have had just one league player of the year -- Joe Carrabino in 1984.

The last Harvard man to suit up in the NBA? Ed Smith in 1953.

Lin could change all of that, a thought that boggles the mind of the man who fell in love with a sport so many years ago.

"All this time he was growing up, I never thought about Jeremy playing in college or professionally," Gie-Ming said. "I just enjoyed watching him play. I'm just so proud of him and so happy for him. I told him my dream already has come true."

Dana O'Neil covers college basketball for ESPN.com and can be reached at espnoneil@live.com.

WII soldiers reunite, thank heroes

WWII soldiers reunite, thank heroes A group dubbed the "lost battalion" reunited with the combat team that saved them.
David Ono
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- On this Veterans Day, we take you back 65 years to a World War II battle so fierce that the U.S. Army places it among its top ten in history. Soldiers involved in that battle recently held a reunion.

It's a remarkable story of tremendous sacrifice from a group of heroes who could have turned their backs on this country but instead used their mistreatment as resolve to prove their loyalty.

We know them today as the Japanese Americans of the 442nd Infantry who bravely rescued the lost battalion.

Their story begins exactly 65 years ago. In the dense forest of the Vosges Mountains in France, the 200 soldiers of the 141st Texas regiment found themselves surrounded by the Nazis, outnumbered and outgunned.

They were trapped by 6,000 fresh German troops under direct orders from Hilter to hold their ground.

The press dubbed them as "The Lost Battalion."

They dug into the mud and fought off one German attack after another.

Bruce Estes was 19 years old at the time and says the fighting was only part of the problem.

"We went five days without food. I could stick my finger through my navel and rub my backbone," recalls Estes.

In a desperate effort to get the Texans food, Army officials ordered artillery shells to be stuffed with chocolate. They then fired them over the thick trees, landing right on top of the Americans.

"The first thing they did, they tried to shoot some chocolate bars into us and right away they got on the radio and said stop that, because we took some casualties from that hard chocolate. It sounds crazy but it happened," said Jack Wilson as he described what it was like being part of the "Lost Battalion."

Two separate fighting units were deployed to try to reach the "Lost Battalion," but were viciously fought back.

The U.S. Army had one hope left in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a unit made up entirely of Japanese Americans, many of whom spent the early part of the war imprisoned in internment camps.

The U.S. labeled them "enemy aliens" even though they were born and raised in the United States.

The prejudice they endured is one of the darkest chapters in American history, yet these young men were desperate to fight for their country and prove their loyalty. They got their chance with the 442nd team.

In a matter of months, they became the most decorated unit in American military history.

Now it was their job to rescue the "Lost Battalion."

"Honor, duty, and as our parents would say, don't bring shame to the family," said Lawson Sakai, a graduate of Montebello High School.

There's a famous quote that reads, "The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst."

Sakai lived that quote. He vividly recalls fighting his way towards the "Lost Battalion."

It was his 21st birthday and almost his last.

"Machine guns are firing at us, and all of the sudden this German popped up in front of me and shot me point blank," recalled Sakai. He described how the German soldier had missed, and they struggled in a violent fist fight. Sakai recalls that when the soldier's helmet fell off, he realized that he was just a 14- or 15-year-old boy. He died in Sakai's arms.

Days of brutal fighting followed. Each tree in the forest had to be earned, and the violence was beyond description.

"Artillery shells screaming at you coming in, exploding. It's the noisiest thing you can imagine, and it's hard to describe, and then bodies flying apart. People being killed in front of you. You can't describe it," said Sakai.

"It's hard to tell young people what it was like when the whole world was at war," explained Sakai.

It took five days, but they made it.

Jack Wilson remembers when the first member of the 442nd unit appeared. They almost shot him thinking it was a German trick.

"I raised that rifle up again and was just about ready to shoot, and all at once this guy raised up his hand and said, 'Hey you guys need any cigarettes?'" Wilson recalled.

Newsreel cameras captured the "Lost Battalion" coming out of the forest, owing their lives to the Japanese American unit who sacrificed dearly to reach them.

The 442nd suffered more than 800 casualties. The K Company, which started with 186 men, had 17 left. The I company, which started with 185 men, had eight men left.

The Texans promised to never forget the 442nd team, and they certainly kept that promise. They held a reunion in Houston, Texas, 65 years later, still saying thank you.

"I think they are the finest bunch of boys there ever was. They had something to prove and as far as I'm concerned, they more than proved it," said Wilson.

Former President Bill Clinton once said, "Rarely has a nation been so well served by a people so ill-treated."

The 442nd earned 21 medals of honor during World War II.

Link: Go For Broke National Education Center