Lowell on road to Olympics for China

LOWELL -- On her 24th birthday, Zhou Yi celebrated with pizza and cupcakes at the corner pizzeria in Lowell, thousands of miles from her home in Sichuan, China.

Zhou and 21 teammates from the Chinese national softball team clambered into the tiny Milan Family Restaurant and Pizzeria all at once, filling every booth as they rushed to get their hands on the pizzas steaming on each table. A 6-4 loss to the New England Riptides in the second game of last week's four-game series didn't curb their appetites, and they stopped only to sing a birthday song to Zhou and present her with a plate of chocolate cupcakes.

Within five minutes, they were gone, clattering back out the door in their cleats and re-boarding the team bus for the short ride to the hotel. There was no time allotted for hanging out. There is only softball.

The Chinese team has a mission, to contend for the gold medal at the Beijing Games in 2008. After finishing as runner-up in two world championships and winning a silver medal in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta (where the US won gold), China has finished fourth in every international competition since and its national organization, the Chinese Softball Association, is determined to get back in the game. As host for the 2008 Games, the Chinese team is under pressure from its countrymen to do well. The International Olympic Committee voted softball off the program for 2012 and only a competitive Olympics will stir hopes of reinstatement. Another sweep by the American team spells doom.

So the Chinese set out to challenge their players. This long trip across the United States, which included the World Cup tournament in Oklahoma and six multi-game series against National Pro Fastpitch teams, has left plenty of room for good and bad times. With Joey Zhou interpreting for Zhou Yi, she explained, "It's good because I can play softball and learn softball and gain more experience. The bad is it's too long. I get exhausted and cannot focus much at the end. After the 2008 Games, softball may not be anymore so I want to play my best. It's not very popular in China. Very few people know it."

Zhou, an outfielder, first played softball at 12. When she was in primary school, she was spotted throwing a ball with power, and thus selected for an amateur softball team. At 18, she made the national team. Zhou, an only child like most in China because of the one-child rule, trains in Beijing. Her parents live in Changdou in Sichuan province. Her father has seen her play -- once, when she was on an amateur team.

It's different in China. Parents don't hover over their children's sports; they don't drive them to the field or the rink five days a week, they don't coach, they don't scream from the stands.

"They don't understand softball," Zhou said of her parents. "They have their own business to mind. They watch [games] on TV. If I make the team, they will come to the Olympics."

The Chinese players travel the US tucked securely into a cocoon, watched over by coaches and softball officials, linked to their hosts through a single interpreter. America's riches don't bother Zhou, who earns about $800 a month as one of the team's highest-paid athletes.

"I have been here over and over," she said, "and I start to feel it's not as good as home."

Jiang Xiuyun, vice president of the Chinese Softball Association, travels with the team, and she must approve every interview with the media. Interpreter Zhou must report every interview. Most answers could have been scripted ahead of time. Head coach Wang Lihong, who played in two Olympics for China, spoke through interpreter Jessica Olans, a Brandeis student from China. Asked what effect a gold medal might have on her players, she said, "The players play this because they like it, they like softball. Winning will make them feel happy; this is the nature of competition."

As part of the effort to become competitive with the Americans, the Chinese hired an American coach, Michael Bastian, in January 2006. Bastian had 25 years of experience, including a stint with US Softball, but the Chinese coaches didn't want an American encroaching on their territory. Bastian led China to six wins in seven games of the round-robin play at last year's World Championships as the team outscored opponents, 34-3, but finished fourth. After a fourth-place finish at the Doha Asian Games in December, Bastian was moved to hitting coach. "I never know day to day what my title will be," said the 44-year-old from Sacramento.

The territorial battle resumes every day. During games against the Riptide, Bastian stood at the right end of the bench, while the three Chinese coaches clustered at the left end.

"Every day we're in a conflict," Bastian said. "Every day we're in a fight. They feel I'm taking a job from them, a lucrative job.

"It's so hard to get Chinese people to want to change. They can be very strong-willed. This trip they want me to teach the Chinese coaches to coach the Western game, but it's like a brick wall. They don't want to change."

Still, Bastian has loved his coaching stint for China, particularly his bond with the players. "It's probably the greatest experience of my life," he said. "Their goals and dreams are so different than ours. I've developed a trust with them. I don't think they've had coaches in China who treated them as people instead of a device that could get them wins in softball."

While the Americans play a more aggressive brand of softball than the Chinese, Bastian -- who insisted on the freedom to speak to the press when he was hired -- related stories of the stern Chinese approach to discipline. He watched a coach slap a player in the locker room after a disappointing game in Australia, and he said the whole team was forced to run back to its hotel after a loss in Washington, D.C., a trek of several miles through the city streets at night.

"Being part of this national team, they are among the most fortunate people in China," said Bastian. "The Olympics is probably the biggest event of their lives, the excitement, the pressure. What they could gain if they won a gold medal -- money, homes, and cars for the rest of their lives."

On this night at Martin Field in Lowell, it's a perfect summer evening: it's warm and there's a soft breeze brushing a happy crowd of nearly 1,000. Daylight lingers through the fourth inning. There are many Chinese in the stands, including three little girls standing just behind the dugout who look just like the Chinese players, except they are Americans now, adopted by American families.

The Chinese team takes the field in bright red and yellow uniforms, and red cleats that were made in China, shipped to Nike in the United States, then shipped back to China for the team. On the mound is Zhou Yin, a tall, imposing 19-year-old from Beijing, who spent five months at Lassen Community College in Susanville, Calif., this spring. It was long enough to acquire a taste for barbecued ribs and cheesecake, and to pick up a little English.

She might come back for another semester, but she is ready to go home now.

"The US is different," she said. "Life is different."