Helping Launch Slowpitch Softball in China

April 1, 2015 – Terry Hennessy CEO

COVERING

THE BASES

By Terry Hennessy

Softball is known throughout the world as a uniquely American sport. Like many other popular sports, it long ago expanded beyond its home borders and is now played in countries around the world.

It is easy to understand why softball has grown in popularity.

Softball is one of the few sports that can be played throughout life, as we in senior softball are well aware. For seniors, softball provides healthy exercise, creates the foundation of friendships, and inspires individuals to work together for a common cause (winning the game).

But there is even more to our sport.

In younger ages, it not only provides healthy exercise, but teaches the young how to work together as a team, instills the concept of sportsmanship – and respect of those we compete against -- and helps youngsters learn how important it is to follow the rules of the game and win fairly.

Recognizing these benefits, a delegation from China visited the World Masters Championships in Las Vegas in 2012 to get some ideas to help grow the sport in that country.

The Chinese delegate, Zhaoli Chen, told us that the Japanese Softball Association had recommended she contact Senior Softball-USA (SSUSA).

SSUSA had helped the Japan Softball Association launch a senior program in 2000 and has sent teams to compete in Japan and promote the sport since that time. Japan now has a very strong senior softball program, with an annual championships that draws more than 60 senior Japanese teams.

After hearing about our relationship with Japan and seeing the World Masters Championships, Ms. Chen asked Senior Softball-USA to act as an official consultant to growing softball in China.

Traditionally the way SSUSA has promoted senior softball overseas has been through International Softball tours.

Over the past 27 years SSUSA has brought hundreds of American senior players to more than 30 countries to play ball – and act as ambassadors for this truly American sport. This year, the tour, run by SSUSA’s International Sports Holidays, will be playing tournaments and games in Italy in October. The tour is open to any SSUSA member and their friends and family.

To promote softball in China, SSUSA launched an international tour to Shanghai, Xian and Beijing in 2013. Teams from Japan and Taiwan also competed. The tournament was christened the Pacific Rim Championships.

The momentum of the tournament -- built upon the friendships of the softball organizers in Japan, China, Taiwan and SSUSA -- led to the creation of the Pacific Rim Slow-Pitch Softball Association, which was launched at the 2nd Pacific Rim Championships in Japan the next year.

The purpose of the association is to grow softball throughout the region. The four charter members – China, Taiwan, Japan and the United States – hope to add several more countries to the association in the coming years.

Growing softball in China has turned into an entirely different program from anything SSUSA has done before.

The program is focused on introducing tee-ball in elementary schools and slow-pitch softball in middle and high schools. Both sports use extremely soft “safety” balls, so fielder’s gloves are not essential and the fields can be much smaller than the regulation American softball fields.

Unlike America, where baseball for boys and fast-pitch for girls is king, Chinese educators are pushing for the safer tee-ball and slowpitch softball programs using safety balls.

Chinese parents are extremely protective of their children, the result of the one-child-per-family law, and school officials feel it will be much easier to establish PE programs with the softer balls.

The program is at a critical juncture in China. In the past eight years, Chen has developed programs in about 500 schools – a small number considering there are 220 million elementary through high school students in the country.

Chen is developing teaching materials and videos to help teachers, many of whom know nothing about softball, establish PE classes for both tee-ball and slow-pitch softball. One of the critical teaching materials Chen is using is a book by senior softballers Rainer and Julie Martens, “ Complete Guide to Slowpitch Softball,” which Chen has translated.

She has received approval from China’s Central Committee to test a pilot program in Chongquing City in north-central China. If the pilot program is successful, Chen says she hopes to establish the sport throughout China’s schools.

While it is a vastly different arena for SSUSA (consulting on building softball among schoolchildren) it is somehow fitting that U.S. seniors open the door to a lifetime of fun for children halfway around the world.

Terry Hennessy is chief executive officer of Senior Softball-USA. You can reach him at terryh@seniorsoftball.com.