Word By Jenny Yun-Chen Chang/ Taiwan
Photo By Danny Wang/Taiwan
Taipei- Not many student athletes get to step on the sacred High School Basketball League (HBL) stage as freshmen, and among those lucky talented ones, there are even less who keep up their academic studies while playing on the team. Xin-Kuan “Kevin” Lin from Taichung Municipal Dongshan Senior High School is one of the few.
A local Taichung kid, Kevin went to Taichung Municipal Da Yung Elementary School, one of the few elementary schools in Taichung with soccer court. However, instead of playing soccer, he joined the basketball varsity team at six grade because his uncle started to teach him play when he was eight.
“I wasn’t going to play basketball in junior high,” Kevin said, “so I went to study at Siang-Shang (one of the public schools that boasts academic performances in Taichung), but coach saw me in the second year, and that’s when I transferred to a school with basketball expertise.”
Unlike his teammate Wei Chen who always practices basketball all the way up before high school, Kevin still managed to earn himself a jersey as a freshman last year. After fellow senior Tzu-Hsuan Chiu graduated, head coach Yen-Chih “Gary” Liao hopes Kevin to become a leader.
“I want him to take Chiu as his goal and work towards there.” Gary said, “He played the tournament last year, so his ability dealing with the pressure and his condition overall is better than the others. We don’t have very tall players, just fairly tall, so I hope he can continue improving and excel outside of the arc.”
Starting as power forward this season, Kevin is trying to follow Gary’s instruction to switch position step by step. Talking about the first game this season, Kevin shared his thoughts on becoming the clutch player.
“I need to be the franchise player this year,” Kevin said, “but there’s no live broadcasting with our first game, so it’s not stressful at all. However, I prefer live broadcasting because my family and friends can see me play.”
Although Kevin failed to win the Rookie of the Year Award last season, he plans to prove himself both on and off court this year. Gary praised that Kevin’s math performances are pretty good, but according to his homeroom and math teacher, Kevin hasn’t been studying hard recently.
“This was all because of the tournament.” Kevin said, “The time we sat in the classroom was less, and preparing for the tournament is tiring, but I’ll go back to my studies after Quarter-Final Match, I promise. I’m the kind of student who knows how to cram very much”
Gary doesn’t specifically ask his students to have excellent academic performances, but he wants them to learn how to pay attention in class, and since Kevin is a student who has the ability to study well, it’ll be a pity if he gives up this opportunity.
“I always tell them that if you need to stay one more year in high school because you are flunked,” Gary said, “it’s beneficial to me, one more player to use the next year. Reverse psychology works for kids perfectly. I don’t want Kevin to be too tired, but I told him that he’ll have more choices if he plays basketball well and studies well at the same time.”
Now only a junior, Kevin already has the dream to play in the US after high school, and even though his favorite subject is math, he’ll need to put more effort and spend more time on English pretty soon.
“I don’t know why,” Gary said,” most of our players are good at math. We have several students who major accounting in university now, which I think is very interesting.”
Taught by Hai-Shuo Lee, a popular English teacher at Dongshan, Kevin likes English class pretty much. Lee doesn’t pressurize them too much, giving them space as they are on the varsity team.
“He’s like our friend.” Kevin said, “He’s not very serious, and teaches innovatively. He’s class is interesting, and I think everyone likes his class.”
While focusing on reaching Final Four under Gary’s coaching, Kevin tries to balance his academic studies, and Gary will make sure that Kevin holds both the ball and books after three years of high school education.