Asian American Sports Festival

American-style sports mania will mix with an Asian sense of community and culture this weekend at Marathon Park.

About 1,000 athletes — mostly Hmong, but with all races participating and welcome — are expected to compete in the ninth annual Asian American Sports Festival, organized by Toulee Moua of Wausau. The festival will feature competition in flag football, soccer and volleyball for males and flag football and soccer for females.

There also will be Asian food and merchandise sold at the festival, an event that’s part of a national trend.

“These Hmong sports tournaments are becoming a huge part of what it means to be a Hmong-American,” said Noah Her, 24, of Wausau. “You pick up chicks, meet with friends, shop at different stores and vendors. A lot of it has roots way back in Thailand, where we come from. It’s just a sense of community and bringing the community together again.”

The Wausau tournament is small by national standards. Tens of thousands of athletes, including Her, competed in a tournament over the July 4 weekend in St. Paul, Minn.

But it’s growing.

“When I started, it was slow,” said Moua, 35. “I guess it has grown about 30 percent.”

There’s a low-key, backyard/street vibe to the tournament, but the competition is serious. Moua said first-place teams can take home as much as $2,000.

“I have some friends who play volleyball every night, training,” Her said. “I have friends who have ruined their shoulders from spiking the ball.”

The best athletes become national stars in the Hmong community, he said.

Sports festivals help younger Hmong-Americans bridge the gap between the old life of Laos and Thailand and the new life in the United States, said Thomas Lee, director of the Wausau/Marathon County Diversity Affairs Office.

“The younger generation are more Americanized. They participated in those sports in school,” Lee said. “And now, they’re able to compete at the festival as well.”

Source:  http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20090721/WDH0101/907210427/1981

Sheboygan Hmong Summer Festival: Flag Football

Hundreds of Hmong team members will rush to Kiwanis Park next weekend to kick off a flag-football competition, something new being added to the Hmong Summer Festival’s lineup of athletic competitions that already includes basketball, soccer and volleyball.

More than 3,000 Hmong will flock from across the state and as far as St. Paul, Minn., to compete in the games, Chue Neng Lee, chairman of the festival, said.

“This generation, there is much more interest in basketball and football,” Lee said. “We would have included them in the last couple of years, but for some reason we couldn’t find a person who could coordinate. This year, we’re lucky.”

He expects to see as many as 15 teams, with 30 to 50 players each, compete in flag football, a popular twist on football in which players pluck flags from opponents instead of tackling them.

Teams can register until the day of the event, but will pay registration fees from $50 to $100, depending on the event, unless they decide on advance registration.

The Hmong Mutual Assistance Association, which hosts the festival, will hand out more than $10,000 in cash prizes to winning sports teams.

Any remaining proceeds from the festival will be donated to the association, which provides services to refugees and the Hmong community of Sheboygan with English, citizenship and Hmong music classes, educational workshops and cultural displays.

Merchants will also be on hand to show off their Hmong clothes, food and homemade jewelry.

“The whole event, it’s fun,” Lee said.

In another nod to the changing tastes of the younger Hmong generation, the festival will drop its traditional top-spinning contest this year. In years past, festival-goers have faced off to spin wooden tops and see whose top spun the longest. Interest has dwindled, Lee said.

The Hmong Mutual Assistance Association, a nonprofit that was created in 1980, has run the Hmong Summer Festival for nearly its entire history.

The Hmong New Year, celebrated near Thanksgiving, is the only other major Hmong celebration.

Reach Kate McGinty at kmcginty@sheboyganpress.com and 453-5125.

Source:  http://www.sheboyganpress.com/article/20090719/SHE04/907190336/1097/Athletics-playing-a-big-part-in-Hmong-Summer-Festival

Hmong anglers enjoy new white bass

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) About 100 white bass hitched a short ride recently between two small Ramsey County lakes, but the fish relocation was a bigger step in relations between the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Southeast Asian anglers.

DNR fisheries workers captured the white bass in Pleasant Lake in North Oaks and trucked them two miles downstream to Sucker Lake in Vadnais Heights. Pleasant Lake is off-limits to fishing, so the fish are now available for anglers to catch.

More specifically, they are available to Southeast Asian anglers, who in recent years have pushed the DNR to put more effort into white bass management. The white-fleshed fish are highly coveted by Hmong and other Southeast Asian anglers because they are tasty and resemble a species native to their homelands.

”It is a good fish to eat, with less bones,” said John Ny Vang, of St. Paul. ”You can steam them and fry them, and the meat is firm.”

White bass are found mostly in large rivers, such as the St. Croix and the Mississippi, but in few lakes. Most of the state’s anglers hold the species in low regard, preferring walleyes, black bass and northern pike species that get the bulk of the DNR’s attention.

But a new St. Paul sportsman’s group has persuaded the DNR to pay more attention to white bass.

The group, the Capitol Sportsman’s Chapter of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association, represents mostly Southeast Asian sportsmen and has interests that include fishing and squirrel hunting. Vang is one of its founding members. He said that in 2007 he presented a program at a DNR round-table, which included Commissioner Mark Holsten, to make white bass a higher priority.

The agency agreed. The DNR’s fisheries managers have developed a four-part plan to publicize more of Minnesota’s white bass hotspots, conduct white bass fishing clinics, test fish for contaminants and try experimental stockings to boost populations.

The Sucker Lake stocking was the first such effort. ”If this works out reasonably well and there is some measure of success, we’re willing to give it a try for a few more years,” said Dirk Peterson, DNR regional fisheries supervisor. ”It’s a small, inexpensive thing we can do and it addresses the concerns of a group that has a strong angling tradition.”

Peterson said the Sucker Lake project costs $1,000 or less.

In the past two decades, the agency has translated fishing regulations into Southeast Asian languages, hired Southeast Asian managers and recruited and hired three Southeast Asian conservation officers.

More recently, those officers and volunteers have been teaching five or six firearms safety classes to Southeast Asian hunters annually.

There are 30,000 to 40,000 Southeast Asian anglers, according to Josee Cung, the DNR’s Southeast Asian liaison officer.

But the white bass program is the DNR’s first wildlife management effort that caters to that group.

”It’s such an important species that many Minnesota Southeast Asian anglers go to Devils Lake in North Dakota to fish for them,” Cung said. ”The Sportsman’s Chapter made the economic argument, if people drive to Devils Lake, why can’t we have more white bass in Minnesota?”

Pleasant Lake is part of St. Paul’s water supply system and off-limits to fishing. The fish are in Pleasant and the connecting chain of lakes because the system is linked to the Mississippi River. The fish survive in Pleasant Lake because it has moving water, but it is doubtful the bass will reproduce in Sucker Lake, Peterson said.

The Pleasant-Sucker relocation makes sense, said Peterson, because both have invasive zebra mussels present. It would be impossible to move the white bass to any lakes that don’t have zebra mussels.

The Pleasant Lake has a similar fish contaminant warning as many Minnesota lakes, limiting anglers to eating one meal of fish per week.

But contaminants are an issue for white bass anglers using other waters. White bass tested in the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers 20 years ago showed high levels of PCBs and mercury. The DNR, along with the Department of Health, will retest those populations soon.

”We actually assume those contaminants will be lower because water quality has improved,” Peterson said.

Using electrical gear and special boats, the DNR captured white bass and moved them to Sucker Lake, which has a public park. The bass averaged about one pound, a typical size for white bass that anglers catch, said DNR fisheries specialist Rick Walsh.

The DNR hopes to expand its Web site and publish a brochure with white bass information.

”It’s a small effort,” said Cung of the Sucker Lake stocking, ”but the community is very appreciative of the effort.”

Source: http://wcco.com/localsportswire/22.0.html?type=local&state=MN&category=s&filename=MN–Outdoors-WhiteBas.xml

Volleyball: Big part of Hmong culture

Tradition. Culture. Family. Love.

All of these words mean something to everyone. To many in the Hmong community, the words can relate to volleyball. For years, the sport has been a part of the Hmong culture, being played at large celebrations.

Now, as the sport has grown into the boys’ high school ranks, it is quickly becoming an option for young Hmong student-athletes.

“(Volleyball) is just something that since I was a kid I knew about, but I didn’t play until my uncle from Chicago got me into it,” said Thoua Vang, a senior right-side hitter for Appleton East. “He told me, ‘It’s a good sport, you should try it.’”

And tried it Vang has, as have others. The varsity rosters of Appleton East and Appleton West are both examples that show the high interest level Hmong student-athletes have in the game — East has five Hmong players on a roster of 11, while West features three Hmong players on its nine-man roster.

The two teams meet in the WIAA playoffs on Friday at 7 p.m. at Appleton East.

The story of how each player arrives at the sport varies. For Vang, it was his uncle, and eventually a love of the game, that piqued his interest.

“I used to dance before this,” said Vang. “Volleyball was interesting after I got into it. For me, I like sports that deal with teamwork. I like to work with a team, so that’s a key thing.”

For teammate Bee Yang, his road to discovering the sport was a bit different.

“I started playing in gym class in junior high, but basically, I played outside of school,” said Yang, a senior setter for the Patriots. “I play at the park sometimes, and all my friends got me involved. They motivated me to play my best.”

The parks have long been a destination for Hmong boys looking to find a game of volleyball. Often, large tournaments are held, including during the Hmong New Year, and other tournaments take place throughout the year.

One of the largest tournaments is held each year at the Hmong International Sports Festival in St. Paul, Minn., at McMurray Fields by Como Park. The event routinely draws 40,000 people from all over the United States and boasts a combination of sports such as volleyball, soccer, takro, football and top spinning.

Festivals such as this all promote two very important aspects of Hmong culture — family and community unity. And from a sports perspective, takro may be the best to link the Hmong community to their interest in volleyball.

Takro is a mix of volleyball and soccer. Players use their head and feet to pass a small, woven ball over a four-foot net. Along with top-spinning, it was one of the first sports Hmong played in Laos, learning the games from the Laotians, Thai and Chinese. It’s only natural that takro developed into current loves such as volleyball and soccer.

“There’s a lot of Hmong kids that play volleyball, but they don’t play for school,” said Vang. “They play for outside tournaments and for fun, especially when we have tournaments or our New Year’s. I don’t know why they don’t play for school.”

But as high school boys’ volleyball continues to grow, Yang believes, and is hoping, that more Hmong will find their way from the parks to the gym. He’d love to see others from the Hmong community discover the sport at the high school level.

“The way it has worked, more people play after they see others playing. Younger generations follow what they see,” he said. “I’d tell someone if they are interested to just try it. Just have the time and the patience to try it out.”

Ryan Wilson: 920-993-1000, ext. 230, or rwilson@postcrescent.com

Source: http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20081027/APC020506/810270529/1009/APC02

World Series matchup

It’s been a year since the last World Series, give or take, so it’s reasonable to have forgotten a few things. Fox still promotes its new shows incessantly (even for Jack Bauer of ‘24′) getting flogged this hard probably qualifies as cruel and unusual. Hearing Tim McCarver dissect the latest baseball slang (they call that slider a ‘cement mixer’ ) is still as painful as listening to your dad explain rap music. But watching two very good baseball teams go at it in October remains a blast, all peripheral silliness aside. Game One of the World Series, a tense, well-played 3-2 Philadelphia Phillies win over the Tampa Bay Rays, demonstrated that.

The Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell is settling in for a fun Series.  Why rush, like all these other recent too-brief Octobers Why not have an old-fashioned Series that evolves and polishes its plot twists, Boswell writes.  After all, this pairing is special in its incongruity.  A lovely soft breeze, called disbelief, wafted across Tampa Bay as this battle began between the franchise of 10,000 losses and the team so damned it had to change its name to get the Devil out. Some Series begin amid anticipation or palpitations. This one was bathed in incredulity.

While the favored Rays will be playing from behind when the series resumes Thursday night, St. Petersburg Times columnist John Romano encourages the team’s fans not to panic.  It is true the Rays have something to fear today, Romano allows.  They have not only fallen behind in the Series, but they have also ceded their homefield advantage for the time being. But, you have seen this before. Just 12 days earlier, as a matter of fact. The Rays were so devastated by their offensive shortcomings against the Red Sox in that first ALCS game that they went on to outscore Boston 31-13 while winning the next three games. In other words, Tampa Bay has been through this already. If we have learned nothing else about these Rays as summer has turned into fall, it is that this team does not scare easily.

It probably says something about Philadelphia’s fans that, in the Allentown Morning Call, Keith Groller is, like Romano with Rays fans, trying to soothe Phillies loyalists after their team won.  Maybe if this was the regular season, the fans would fret this morning over the fact that Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell were a combined 0-for-12 with seven Ks, Groller writes.  Maybe Bud from Bensalem or Matt from Manayunk would be calling WIP this morning, griping about leaving 11 on base or the fact that the Phils were 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position. But the bottom line is they won and they won because they have perhaps baseball’s best clutch pitcher in Cole Hamels and a steady 1-2 punch in Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge ready for the late innings.

After the Phillies young ace served up his fourth brilliant effort of the 2008 postseason, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Bob Ford seconds Groller’s assessment of Hamels as baseball’s best clutch pitcher.  Hamels, Ford writes, pitched as if this were just another regular-season game, easing through his fluid motion to keep Tampa Bay off-balance with his mixture of fastballs and change-ups. He didn’t have his best material, but made the best use of what he had. If it seemed routine, go out to start the World Series, go seven, give up just two runs, amid the clatter of the cowbells and the general strangeness of life in an indoor stadium that has its own aquarium, you have to understand that it wasn’t, even for Hamels [But] on a night when the other team was always lurking, Hamels rose to the moment like a ray to squid.

While the Rays have a few days before they’ll be confronted with Hamels again, the Tampa Tribune’s Joe Henderson thinks the team needs a win in Game Two.  It simply will not do to lose both games here at the Trop before heading out to Philly this weekend, Henderson states.  So there will be a distinct air of urgency to the whole affair tonight. But the Rays have the edge in the pitching matchup.  James Shields over Philly’s Brett Myers and you couldn’t say that Wednesday.