NOVEL NEXT Chapter 29 Conditions
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The victory over Lihua High School gave Beiqiao High School basketball team a strong start.
As September arrived, Beiqiao High School began to combine training with playing warm-up games.
They started challenging immigrant middle schools in the surrounding area of Chinatown, substituting games for practice and using competition to nurture combat abilities, identifying problems during matches and improving them in training.
Coach Belman was a very comprehensive and strict coach, and leading a team from scratch was both exhausting and rewarding.
He rented an apartment near the school and started his new life.
He threw his whole life into basketball, instructing these kids, which, to a certain extent, healed the wounds life had inflicted on him.
In daily life, he became increasingly gentle and humorous, but correspondingly, on the basketball court, he was even more strict and irritable, as he was determined to make a name for Beiqiao High School.
With Gan Guoyang on the team, no one in East San Francisco could match Beiqiao High School.
On August 30, Beiqiao High School 58:48 Mary Brooke High School, Gan Guoyang had 19 points, 24 rebounds, and 10 blocks.
On September 7, Beiqiao High School 53:47 Stuart High School, Gan Guoyang scored 22 points, grabbed 20 rebounds, and had 7 blocks with 5 assists.
On September 16, Beiqiao High School 67:30 Bruford High School, Gan Guoyang put up 27 points, 17 rebounds, and 12 assists, showing off his assisting abilities.
On September 25, Beiqiao High School 60:55 the French-American International School, Gan Guoyang tallied 33 points, 21 rebounds, and 8 blocks, making it the most intense game thus far.
Gan Guoyang's performance was increasingly capturing the attention of the San Francisco basketball community. At Beiqiao High School's games, some college scouts and newspaper reporters started appearing to observe Gan Guoyang comprehensively.
To be honest, if Gan Guoyang were a Black or White player, with his current performance, some college scouts would have already contacted him privately and established a good personal relationship.
Although the NCAA forbids schools from recruiting talented high schoolers through bribery or engaging in emotional ties, such behavior continues unabated and has become an unwritten rule of the industry.
However, Gan Guoyang was Chinese, and there was no precedent for success among the Chinese in the basketball field. Plus, Beiqiao was a bottom-tier school and the opponents they faced were relatively weak, so everyone maintained a wait-and-see approach, wanting to observe this emerging basketball prodigy a bit more.
The local San Francisco newspapers also reported on Gan Guoyang. The Chinese newspapers in Chinatown naturally praised him greatly, believing he would be the new Chinese luminary after Bruce Lee.
Other newspapers, however, were skeptical, thinking basketball was not a sport suitable for Asians and that Gan Guoyang was just a flash in the pan, soon to disappear with the tide.
Gan Guoyang didn't care about this. He was focused solely on improving himself and didn't pay much attention to the noise around him.
In another month, by November, California's biggest sports event, the CIF California Championship regular season, would begin. That would be the real test for the team and for Gan Guoyang.
Just as the Shui Zhong Team was going all out to prepare for the CIF Championship, the school received some bad news: the San Francisco League Committee had some objections to the school's league membership application.
CIF stands for the California Interscholastic Federation, the athletic governing body for high schools in California, founded in 1916, organizing the most authoritative and comprehensive high school sports events in the state.
Because California has a large number of schools and a vast area, it is divided into 10 regions. Most of the strong sports schools in San Francisco belong to the San Francisco division of the Bay Area League, which is the division Beiqiao High School wished to join.
In the previous season, that is, the 1980-1981 season, CIF restarted the state-wide California Championship, which had been discontinued for 50 years.
After determining the playoff contending teams from each region, it is then divided into two major regions, North and South, to decide the champions of each.
Finally, the champions from the North and South compete against each other to determine the champion of California.
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The Chinese Progressive Association had already paved the way; once the team was established and passed the committee's inspection, meeting the standards and requirements, they would be able to join the League.
As long as the inspection was passed, Beiqiao Shui Zhong would be able to participate in the San Francisco League's regular season, and if they performed excellently, they might even make it into the California state championship, which would be a tremendous honor for Beiqiao.
Gan Guoyang and the Shui Zhong Team did not disappoint Huang Shaohua, winning one battle after another. With the team's record and appearance, they should have been recognized by all accounts.
However, a committee member of the San Francisco League stated that Beiqiao High School's sports foundation was too weak, and the basketball team was hastily formed with an incomplete roster. The opponents they defeated were all weak teams, not part of the CIF interscholastic league, bringing their credibility into question.
If they were allowed to join just like this, being a team too weak and potentially the weakest link, would not help to enhance the quality of the League, so the committee decided to postpone Beiqiao High School's entry into the CIF.
Huang Shaohua was stunned. The money had been spent, connections were made, but just as they were about to succeed, someone suddenly came to sabotage their efforts?
Therefore, Huang Shaohua directly filed a protest with the CIF committee, demanding that the San Francisco League allow them to join, or at the very least, let them join the Pacific Coast Athletic League (PCAL) instead.
After extensive back-and-forth, and Huang Shaohua leveraging various relationships, including using money as an incentive, the CIF finally presented a condition: Beiqiao High School would have to beat a strong interscholastic league team in a game. If they won, they would join the CIF directly; if they lost, further consideration would be needed, and the process would be delayed.
Huang Shaohua's blood pressure soared with anger, but there was nothing he could do. On American soil, Asians are always suppressed.
Now the question was, which high school to compete against, as this would determine the fate of Shui Zhong Team for the season.
Moreover, Beiqiao High School was not allowed to choose their own opponent; the San Francisco League committee would designate one.
In the end, the San Francisco League announced, for the sake of fairness, they would not select a team from their own League but instead reached out to Fremont High School from the neighboring Oakland League.
The game was scheduled for mid-October, set to take place in the Tiger Gymnasium of Fremont High School, forcing Shui Zhong Team to compete away from home.
After receiving this news, Huang Shaohua was extremely angry yet powerless to change it. He could only inform the school authorities and convey the outcome to Coach Belman.
Coach Belman, upon hearing the news, was also angry. However, he said, "If winning the game means our application will be approved, then that is what we'll do—we'll win the game."
Teacher Liu, the athletic director of Beiqiao High School, sighed and said, "Mr. Belman, it seems you have no idea about Fremont High School. The problem isn't about winning or losing; it's whether we can even make it out of Tiger Gymnasium alive."
"What? Is it really that exaggerated?"
"Perhaps it's not that extreme, but that's Oakland, and the basketball atmosphere there is much more daunting than in San Francisco. I'm worried about whether the kids can handle the pressure and about their safety."
Teacher Liu explained the situation at Fremont High School to Coach Belman.
It was a public high school located in a poor black neighborhood of Oakland, with an all-black basketball team.
The area was notorious for its bad security, with street robberies and shootings being a regular occurrence.
The Oakland League was the smallest of the CIF's top ten leagues, with only six schools registered in 1981.
Yet, those six teams were all formidable, with Fremont High School particularly known for its fierce and dominating basketball style.
It was rumored that in Tiger Gymnasium, some of the majority-white teams didn't dare to win against Fremont High School for fear of being beaten up after the game.
"Coach Belman, I think it would be best to explain the situation to the team so that they can be mentally prepared," said Teacher Liu.