Amazing Asian Stars in Athletics, Academics and Life

By Harry Sneider

-Courtesy Photo

My long career as a sports fitness trainer includes working with some major celebrities in figure skating. This all started with figure skater Lynn Grimditch who was a friend of figure skating gold medalist Dorothy Hamill. Shortly after that a young lady by the name of Christie Jenkins came to us. She is the sister-in-law of figure skating gold medalist Peggy Fleming who we met at the Goodwill Games in Moscow in 1986. As we were training Olympians in 1984, we got a call from Tiffany Chin whose mother asked us if we could help her with her physical fitness. She wanted Tiffany to be strong in the jumps. Being an Olympic level high jump coach this was right up our alley. She made the 1984 Olympic team as a figure skater.
Asians are starring in many sports. We have the great basketball point guard for the Houston Rockets, Jeremy Lin, who has many in the nation of China as well as the USA excited about his remarkable exploits. We worked with a great body-builder actor who is Chinese by the name of Bruce Locke. He had the body of a world class athlete and was featured in the movie Robocop. He continues to train. He is in his early 50’s and looks younger than his age. This is because he is dedicated to working out and staying healthy.
Back in the 1980’s a world record holder in the hurdles, Chi Chen from Taiwan, asked us to work with her National Team in track and field. These athletes were very eager to learn the techniques to win medals in the Olympics. With the assistance of Olympic silver medalist James Butts, who was the best triple jumper in the United States, we spent two weeks with Chi and the team to prepare them for the international track competitions. So you can see, I’ve had some amazing opportunities to work with great Asian athletes.
Now let’s write about the amazing academic achievements of these amazing athletes. One athlete we trained was the national champion in tennis, his name is Andrew Park. Andrew was one of the top students in San Marino High School where he received a scholarship to USC all the way through medical school. Another athlete who was on the Arcadia High School volleyball team scored a perfect 1600 on the SATs back in 1997. He went on the MIT. There are many others that we have worked with over the years with amazing achievements in academics as well as athletics.
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal pointed out some of the reasons for the success of our Asian friends. 1. They have high standards in positive values. 2. They are very family oriented. 3. They are very academic. 4. They have spiritual values. 5. They are very persevering. Read “Outliers”. 6. They are patriotic. 7. They want to help the United States of America to become more successful in business, family and life.
Harry Sneider is a world class coach, trainer, motivator, as well as a writer. He has been married for 44 years to his wife Sarah who is an accomplished athlete and trainer. They can be reached at 626-355-8964 or harrysneider@earthlink.net

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