New York Titans
Our History:
Chapter One:
The famed New York Titans began in the Brooklyn Tech High School lunchroom in 1977. We were first-generation Chinese-American kids trying to find our way in an American high school and in the American society. Our immigrant parents came to this great country to forge a better life for themselves, but more importantly, forge a better life for their children. Like many other immigrant families, they arrived without wealth or English language skills. We original Titans were unfamiliar with the extracurricular activities of an American high school. Free time? We were unaccustomed to American social norms. We only knew how hard our parents worked to provide for us. Without 21st century, media – internet, cable TV, texting on smart phones – information traveled more slowly. We saw the world through our parents’ eyes, our required school reading, and the New York Daily News. As we grew older, the language barrier grew as well because our parents spoke only Chinese and we raced headlong into English.
Anyway, the original Titans lacked the skills for American sports, so we failed to make those school teams. Other than our 13 Card Poker game in the lunchroom, we occasionally held a pickup basketball games in gym class or at the neighborhood park. However, one day, we heard about a basketball league at the McBurney YMCA in Manhattan. The Titan’s first mission was to prepare for this league. We had no recruiting process; we were simply teenage friends with no more ambition than to do well in school and discover who we were. None of us knew what we wanted to do after high school. We knew our parents wanted us to attend college, but what we wanted from a college education was a complete mystery. What we did know was that we had a passion to prove ourselves. It was our first experience in an organized basketball league. We took solace in the idea that persistence trumps talent. By the way, we called ourselves The Titans because of our relative height and the inspiration that our Greek Mythology class provided.
Playing basketball gave us a venue to test ourselves in a culture neither our parents nor we had much understanding. On the hardwood, we could control our lives. Our Chinese traditions guided us to do well in school, but we rarely envisioned the goal of that work. So, we crammed for tests as we solidified our friendships on the court. Throughout high school, we play basketball at the McBurney YMCA. Surprisingly after our second year, we won! The main lesson we Titans learned about those first two years was this: if you build it, they will come. If you maintain your convictions and goals, they –new and more “experienced” players - will come, as well as a sponsor and an actual coach who can lead us over the competitive hump.
College years:
The founding Titans eventually went away to college. Some went to University of Buffalo, some to Queens College, and some to New York University. The other founding members drifted away from the group and have not been heard from since. Yet, the Titans resurfaced in our junior year of college when we discovered Chinese club competition. These teams were already playing and the NYU Flames dominated the action. The Flames were members of the Chinese Student Association and they possessed a pure talent for basketball. At that time, the Flames ruled the Chinese club play by traveling to other schools to play their Asian club teams at Cornell, University of Penn, Columbia, Birmingham, and Syracuse to engage in tournament competition. Soon the Titans joined the fray, but for most of us, the NYU Flames were world-class ball, almost legendary, players. However, as some point, the NYU Flames retired and the NYU Titans surpassed them.
Post College:
Eventually the Titans competed in basketball tournaments year round. We would play about six tournaments a year with as much practice as we could schedule in between. Just after we graduated and took our first professional jobs, we recruited players who were 17 at the time. One of the high points in Titan history is when our co-founder Hung, or Johnny, Fei took three 17-year olds onto the team. They became a youthful lifeline for the Titans and eventually part of the team’s foundation. Billy Wong, Felix Chu, and Ming Choi played with abandon and injected life into the Titans. When we first played, we lost quite often and often by embarrassing margins. However, it never bothered us as we stuck together anyway. Yes, five to seven basketball tournaments a year was the norm for the next ten years. Then, our ultimate goal was to participate and win the Chinese Nationals. The "New York" portion of the Titans came in 1985 at our very first national tournament when we represented the city in the annual Memorial Day Weekend tourney. For more information on the tournament, http://www.nacbait.com/
We always felt that this tournament was the light at the end of our tunnel. Yes, we all had other priorities: families, girlfriends, religion, jobs; however, we had our Titan basketball. We would eat, sleep, and dream basketball. Other notable inner-circle Titan players and friends include Tony Pau (currently in the Top 25 of the Chinese hoops and a youth coach), Gary “Blackhole” Tsang (he never saw a shot he didn't like), Tom Cheung (whose calm demeanor and basketball-built body we always counted on), Tony “Rookie” Wong, Tom “Swish” Lai, Willie Chang (Glass), Wen Tung (a class act with tremendous leaping ability), Floyd Han (muscles/muscles), Warren Chin (a current coach and the ultimate ball handler), Lap Huynh (a speedster), Dave Chan ( a great shooter and long-time coach), and Steve Chin , our first post high school coach. The Third Generation of Titans includes leaders such as Gary Mar, Ray Pong, Larry Chan, Johnny Han, Kenny Eng, Sterling Tang, Paul Shen, among others.
The Titans achieved two, Third Place finishes in the Chinese Nationals. Once in 1991,and again in1993. During our run, these were great accomplishments. The west coast teams were consistently unbeatable. However, when we went deep into the playoff rounds during our best runs, we respectfully finished higher than all the other east coast teams. In 1993, we returned the favor to our New York community and organization as we, along with the New Jersey Pirates under the sponsorship of Steve Tin at Comfort Furniture, hosted the Chinese Nationals. In that year, 24 teams from around the country descended onto New York for the Nationals. During the 2010 Toronto NACBAIT Nationals, eighty teams from nine divisions - from 15u to senior division of 45 and over – participated in tournament action. The New York Titans were finally division winners, as in 1999 when the New York Titans won the “35 and over.” The late 90s to 2000 saw most of us hang up our sneakers and retire to focus more on our families. Many of us were fortunate to start families and our kids have known each other since birth. Through annual birthday parties, Christmas gatherings, and Super Bowl events, our kids may not be blood-related, but they are all part of the Titan family.
Dragon Boat:
In 1993, some of us founded the New York Titan Dragon Boat team and raced in the Hudson River, as well as traveled to Canada and US destinations to compete. A dragon boat crew maintains about 18 to 20 rowers, so our Titan family grew when we incorporated this into our repertoire. In this, too, to date our highest national finish has been a respectable Third Place.
The Titans group is also involved New York City Chinatown softball. We have played in this league for at least eight years. Most of the teams at New York-based, and all of us anticipate those summer weekend games. While we struggled in the early years, we persevered and eventually won the league three times.
After a ten-year hiatus, the New York Titans resurfaced as a youth basketball program. In late spring of 2010, we started our league with the help of DAC, the DePhillips Athletic League. Our group is slowly creating its own identity. One of the more fulfilling, and unexpected, reward is to watch our Titan offspring compete and enjoy themselves. The youth Titan program could not exist without the assistance of all the supportive parents. We believe the club is a venue for social gatherings with the theme of good-spirited competition. As with any sport, there are rules and regulations to maintain so it teaches our children cooperation and good sportsmanship. This competition teaches teamwork and self-respect as well as respect for your competitors and respect for the sport itself. It is my opinion that respecting others reflects the Golden Rule – treat as other as you wish to be treated yourself.
Chapter Two:
As I draft this update, we are only days away from the conclusions of the contentious and historical 2016 Presidential Race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This campaign has given us all plenty to think about, especially if we work with young adults.
It should have been noted as Secretary Clinton’s second bid to be our first female President. But as the campaign continued, we got a great deal of trash talking, embellished truth, and mudslinging. It reminded us all that a decent level of civility is required in this country. And, we need to be teaching this to those who follow us.
Today, The NY Titans help teach these values often missing from the campaign. Our program has now become a larger, but leaner machine as the club now has over 150 active young adult members from age seven to 24. Our coaches, board members, and parents have the task of working with over 150 kids for more than 30 weeks. The bulk of our program runs throughout the school year in coordination with the NYC school calendar and has done so for the past 5 or more years. We now have a New Jersey branch with the similar theme … to be a positive influence to the kids that they train and coach. With so many active young adults and coaches/trainers, there are always daily challenges.
The club itself has over 300 players that have worn, or now wear, its colors in this youth basketball arena.
Providing a productive setting for our youth requires quite of bit structure. Today we have about 10 coaches that train all[r1] year round. Temperament, so important to the campaign, is always on display as our coaches train our athletes. Patience, encouragement, and leadership are modeled and ideally transferred when we work with our kids.
Skill building and competition are still a strength of the Titan program, but with our growth comes more management, responsibilities and accountability.
Yes, we want to pass down these positive characteristics are traits that we hope to pass down to our kids.
The joy of competing or the endorphins that are released are still the driving premise that keeps our program fruitful.
The skills that makes us competitive in tournament play are taught at every practice and practices in any match we find ourselves. A disclaimer at this point: As much as we like to be transparent in our workings, we do need to stash away our secret formula.
The health benefits of competition is always a good thing as we encourage our kids to push themselves physically while thinking quickly in the flow of the game.
When competing nationally or locally, it takes quite a bit of restraint and mental prep work. This is the endurance we teach our players.
For many of us, this our first go around as a parent or youth coach in this great US of A culture. It needs to be reiterated: our immigrant parents’ generation was too busy working, trying to make it and adjust to this country. They had little time and energy to take their kids to youth programs or competitions.
These youth programs are now supported by the goliath sports organizations like the NBA and NFL. In the last decade, the NFL has helped the flag circuit of tournaments to encourage kids to participate and develop into football players without the risk of tackle football (concussions and other major injuries). In basketball, we still have youth major brands like the AAU and regional powerhouse Zero Gravity. The 3rd main stream youth sport, baseball, has Little League Nationwide and the Ripken circuit here in the east coast plus multiple private organizers hosting tournaments across the country.
Today, over 35 sets of Titan players and parents have now achieved that coveted sports goal of winning a proverbial Chinese National basketball title. That happened Memorial Day, 2015 when our 18u NY Titan’s team won a nine team tourney defeating Toronto in the finals. Shortly after the 2015 victory, a year later we won the NACBAIT 2016 titles in Dallas in the 15u and 12u divisions. Many of these memories have been captured in the photos on the website and videos on YouTube. Many thanks to the coaches and parents who assisted in these accomplishments. These humble sports titles sit along with the Men’s 35 title from 1999 and placed finishes in our early days.
Our ancestors may appreciate that we honor Asian culture or togetherness with our kids. On Memorial Day weekend 2016, we sent 3 and half teams to Dallas and compete with 70 other Chinese teams. http://www.nacbait.com/ Here we congregate and compete in a North America setting which our Chinese immigrants ancestors made possible when they decided to move to this country.
As we adjust to our multiple visons that we are working on, we recently launched an additional theme/website when we created our separate training division during the summer of 2016. http://www.nytitanstraining.com/
Back to work…. the Titan coaches, board, and all our supporting parents are now tasked with working with the kids in our program and our community. Soon, as we continue to move forward we will be competing front and center against the new technology of gaming….Virtual Reality gaming to coincide with the gamer generation. Our mission statement declares that sports (activity) comes in 3rd place to family first and academics second. We dare to supplement the parent’s participation in our organization and their teaching to help their children become self-sufficient and later become contributors to our society.
Chapter 3:
It has been a little over four years since our last update...
In November 2020, we completed one of the nation’s most historical presidential election that the nation has ever seen, with the highest voter turnout in its proud democratic history. The past four years has brought many gift to the Titans club. However, now, like many basketball clubs all over the United States, they have either shut down or operate on a very limited basis since March 2020 due to the pandemic. Our club and its parents are practicing social distancing while we wait for a vaccine to for COVID 19. At the end of November 2020, the USA has 12.9 million cases out of the 61.8 million worldwide cases; we are under 5% of the world’s population, but have 20% of the global COVID 19’s recorded cases, and unfortunately, we are also running at 18% of the world’s recorded death’s totals. Light may be at the end of the tunnel as two American companies Pfizer/Biontech and Moderna vaccines are emerging from the pack and should be approved by the FDA in early December. By the end 2nd quarter of 2021, these 95% effective vaccines should be distributed to most of the USA population. Fingers crossed: things may return to “normal.”
Before the virus broke, the Titans were operating weekly during the New York City public school academic year. The club was following its 10-month schedule by working with youngsters from ages 8 to 18. In our formative years, former Titan alumnus would coach most of our classes and sessions. In addition to the old-timer alumnus, today we reach out to former college players and high school coaches to do a percentage of our training. Our program teaches basketball with a specific coaching discipline founded on personal aptitude and efficiency. During our workout sessions, we arrange in-house scrimmages after the structured training. Our youth members who started the program about a decade ago are now in their college and graduate school years and many are now young adults in the workforce who have been coming back to play hoops once a week. Logistically, gym time is still a challenge for us, as we operate, on average, in 3 different NYC schools during the year. Currently we have about 100 weekly participants during the school year.
The training program operates as a nonprofit under the AAU umbrella (https://aausports.org) and collects a fee to help cover the cost of the gyms, insurance, AAU membership, administration, and the commitment of the trainers. Most of our youth travel team coaches are parents of program participant. Our club travels locally, regionally, and occasionally cross country to compete in tourneys. Currently, the Titan’s weekly training program does not advertise and has grown accordingly within the community. In our program, we do not discriminate based on talent or ethnicity; however, we recruit cooperative members who willingly join us to practice. While in session, we also limit the size of the class to manage the effectiveness of the session.
We do our best to capture the travel ball experiences with the best travel ball coaching staff possible. Generally in the “travel team” sports culture, the traveling parent is the key to whether the travel aspect has the full travel ball positive experience. We are similar to other “travel teams” in the United States, traveling to different sites to compete, with hotel stays, meals, and team socialization. For many of our parents, this is a first-time generational experience of travel ball with their kids. There are a handful of volunteer parents in each travel age group, who go the extra mile to share their sandwiches, snacks, photos with the other families. We also have several parents who volunteer to film the competition and later upload them on YouTube for everyone’s viewing and subsequent reflections. Most of the parents are instinctively protective of their kids, but that shield is also spread out over to the entire travel entourage.
We believe our training and travel team prices are fair priced to cover basic operating costs. More importantly, we try to refrain from giving discounts to the more talented kids and work hard to provide services or cooperate with those who have limited resources.
As the program grows in size and longevity, we are an active group; we have been fortunate to be invited to play at halftime during NBA basketball games. Our kids, mostly under 14, have the opportunity to play a few minutes under the bright NBA spotlights at the packed Barclay Center on the main court. These opportunities are by-products of our hard-working parents who believe that exercise, team, organizational cooperation still play a major role in their overall a child’s enrichment and enjoyment. Of course, none of these activities are possible if the game of basketball is not enjoyable, so we continue to coach to create continue engagement and healthy participation.
A few years ago, our founding members or 1st generation Titans, had their 40th anniversary and celebrated our bond and friendship. In 1977 our originating players included names like Hung Fei, Francis, Peter, Willie, Russel, Danny, Warren, Andrew, Johnson, Steve, Phillip, and yours truly. In our 2nd year of competitive existence, we added Teddy, who along with our first and most talented basketball star, Danny, helped us achieve our first taste of recreational basketball tournament winning. Unfortunately as a guilty pleasure, playing and winning makes the hard work just a little more enjoyable.
Presently, our youngest Titans have had their share of youth basketball competition and occasional championships. To play basketball with the Titans is a privilege financed by the parents and not a rite of passage; parents usually require their children to maintain their standard of academic excellence, and civic-minded cooperation in and out of the home. As for the level of our play, none of these activities would be possible without the help of the organizers and coaches in each age group. The club travel portion has taken in some solid leaders who work efficiently to juggle every participant's involvement while trying to outlast the competition. From the late Eighties and early Nineties, former Titan players who carried the torch for decades have come back to coach their kids on their teams. Co-Founder and former player Warren was our first youth club coach who without his stoic leadership, we would have been unable to launch the youth club in 2010. It was enormously helpful that Coach Warren played college ball with Polytech School in the late Eighties. Coach Tom and Coach Tony, both inductees of our informal Hall of Fame, returned to coach their kids and a new generation of Titan’s teams. Coach Johnny, our legendary softball star pitcher, and # 3 hitter, also came back to coach the young kids. In the late Nineties, guard Gary has also come back and led his travel group of youngsters. The club has also added 1st generation parent-head coach leaders like Coach Ricky, Coach Andy, and Coach Dinh: all of these in-house coaches have logged in years with the club and their teams, kids and parents. As a team’s in-house travel coach, this volunteer position calls on organization and mentoring skills, all while working on their careers and allocating time to their other family members. Travel Head Coach Steve, Anthony and Paul have also helped successfully coach teams in the nationals.
The history of the Titans is an immigrant story, I believe, as first-generation born American’s adjust to the norms of this adopted or our native country. We now have many success stories; when we started 40 plus years ago, we didn’t know what high school sports were; today, many of our teenagers are not only making their high school teams, a handful now “represent” as team captains. Kudos to the parents for making all this happen and allowing us to share in their efforts to achieve a certain high school sports status. We recently added another college player to our club: Ryan Lau, an original founding Titan youth club member and, the son of one of the youth club co-founders, Wendy, is playing college ball for Hunter College. Cory Madden, a later Titan recruit played college ball for Manhattanville. There are other Titan players in the pipeline who are knocking on the door of college basketball success.
In the Titan’s arena, we can proudly say recent wins in the NACBA and our annual national’s tournament has been quite satisfying. Most recently, our 18u team won in Chicago in 2019 out of field of nine North American teams. In 2018 in Philadelphia, our 13u and 15u teams also won their NACBA division and it was quite an enriching experience for our players, members, and teams. We also need to mention that along the way, our teams have also sustained humbling tourney losses. Our youth travel teams over the past ten years have now traveled to places like Boston, Minneapolis, Montreal, Dallas, Wisconsin, Philadelphia, and most recently in Chicago. If the pandemic is under control, we hope to compete sometime during the summer 2021 in Florida.
Overall, we continue to stay in our lane, cooperate, and operate as proficiently as possible. We understand there are other productive sports clubs in the area, so parents have their choice of where their children compete. We are now humbled when parents and their children choose to play with the Titans; but more importantly, we are happy to see them creating their own Titan’s identity, friendships, mini families, memories, and their own sports legacy.
We will continue to refine our organization to create that optimal platform and structure where children, teenagers and young adults play, compete, and have fun together. If the members continue to enjoy the game through their adulthood, we feel we have been a small contributor to their growth of continued physical activity and the enjoyment of the game of hoops.
The club doesn’t exist without the parents. We can’t thank them enough and a special shout out to those in the background who make all this happen.
Chapter One:
The famed New York Titans began in the Brooklyn Tech High School lunchroom in 1977. We were first-generation Chinese-American kids trying to find our way in an American high school and in the American society. Our immigrant parents came to this great country to forge a better life for themselves, but more importantly, forge a better life for their children. Like many other immigrant families, they arrived without wealth or English language skills. We original Titans were unfamiliar with the extracurricular activities of an American high school. Free time? We were unaccustomed to American social norms. We only knew how hard our parents worked to provide for us. Without 21st century, media – internet, cable TV, texting on smart phones – information traveled more slowly. We saw the world through our parents’ eyes, our required school reading, and the New York Daily News. As we grew older, the language barrier grew as well because our parents spoke only Chinese and we raced headlong into English.
Anyway, the original Titans lacked the skills for American sports, so we failed to make those school teams. Other than our 13 Card Poker game in the lunchroom, we occasionally held a pickup basketball games in gym class or at the neighborhood park. However, one day, we heard about a basketball league at the McBurney YMCA in Manhattan. The Titan’s first mission was to prepare for this league. We had no recruiting process; we were simply teenage friends with no more ambition than to do well in school and discover who we were. None of us knew what we wanted to do after high school. We knew our parents wanted us to attend college, but what we wanted from a college education was a complete mystery. What we did know was that we had a passion to prove ourselves. It was our first experience in an organized basketball league. We took solace in the idea that persistence trumps talent. By the way, we called ourselves The Titans because of our relative height and the inspiration that our Greek Mythology class provided.
Playing basketball gave us a venue to test ourselves in a culture neither our parents nor we had much understanding. On the hardwood, we could control our lives. Our Chinese traditions guided us to do well in school, but we rarely envisioned the goal of that work. So, we crammed for tests as we solidified our friendships on the court. Throughout high school, we play basketball at the McBurney YMCA. Surprisingly after our second year, we won! The main lesson we Titans learned about those first two years was this: if you build it, they will come. If you maintain your convictions and goals, they –new and more “experienced” players - will come, as well as a sponsor and an actual coach who can lead us over the competitive hump.
College years:
The founding Titans eventually went away to college. Some went to University of Buffalo, some to Queens College, and some to New York University. The other founding members drifted away from the group and have not been heard from since. Yet, the Titans resurfaced in our junior year of college when we discovered Chinese club competition. These teams were already playing and the NYU Flames dominated the action. The Flames were members of the Chinese Student Association and they possessed a pure talent for basketball. At that time, the Flames ruled the Chinese club play by traveling to other schools to play their Asian club teams at Cornell, University of Penn, Columbia, Birmingham, and Syracuse to engage in tournament competition. Soon the Titans joined the fray, but for most of us, the NYU Flames were world-class ball, almost legendary, players. However, as some point, the NYU Flames retired and the NYU Titans surpassed them.
Post College:
Eventually the Titans competed in basketball tournaments year round. We would play about six tournaments a year with as much practice as we could schedule in between. Just after we graduated and took our first professional jobs, we recruited players who were 17 at the time. One of the high points in Titan history is when our co-founder Hung, or Johnny, Fei took three 17-year olds onto the team. They became a youthful lifeline for the Titans and eventually part of the team’s foundation. Billy Wong, Felix Chu, and Ming Choi played with abandon and injected life into the Titans. When we first played, we lost quite often and often by embarrassing margins. However, it never bothered us as we stuck together anyway. Yes, five to seven basketball tournaments a year was the norm for the next ten years. Then, our ultimate goal was to participate and win the Chinese Nationals. The "New York" portion of the Titans came in 1985 at our very first national tournament when we represented the city in the annual Memorial Day Weekend tourney. For more information on the tournament, http://www.nacbait.com/
We always felt that this tournament was the light at the end of our tunnel. Yes, we all had other priorities: families, girlfriends, religion, jobs; however, we had our Titan basketball. We would eat, sleep, and dream basketball. Other notable inner-circle Titan players and friends include Tony Pau (currently in the Top 25 of the Chinese hoops and a youth coach), Gary “Blackhole” Tsang (he never saw a shot he didn't like), Tom Cheung (whose calm demeanor and basketball-built body we always counted on), Tony “Rookie” Wong, Tom “Swish” Lai, Willie Chang (Glass), Wen Tung (a class act with tremendous leaping ability), Floyd Han (muscles/muscles), Warren Chin (a current coach and the ultimate ball handler), Lap Huynh (a speedster), Dave Chan ( a great shooter and long-time coach), and Steve Chin , our first post high school coach. The Third Generation of Titans includes leaders such as Gary Mar, Ray Pong, Larry Chan, Johnny Han, Kenny Eng, Sterling Tang, Paul Shen, among others.
The Titans achieved two, Third Place finishes in the Chinese Nationals. Once in 1991,and again in1993. During our run, these were great accomplishments. The west coast teams were consistently unbeatable. However, when we went deep into the playoff rounds during our best runs, we respectfully finished higher than all the other east coast teams. In 1993, we returned the favor to our New York community and organization as we, along with the New Jersey Pirates under the sponsorship of Steve Tin at Comfort Furniture, hosted the Chinese Nationals. In that year, 24 teams from around the country descended onto New York for the Nationals. During the 2010 Toronto NACBAIT Nationals, eighty teams from nine divisions - from 15u to senior division of 45 and over – participated in tournament action. The New York Titans were finally division winners, as in 1999 when the New York Titans won the “35 and over.” The late 90s to 2000 saw most of us hang up our sneakers and retire to focus more on our families. Many of us were fortunate to start families and our kids have known each other since birth. Through annual birthday parties, Christmas gatherings, and Super Bowl events, our kids may not be blood-related, but they are all part of the Titan family.
Dragon Boat:
In 1993, some of us founded the New York Titan Dragon Boat team and raced in the Hudson River, as well as traveled to Canada and US destinations to compete. A dragon boat crew maintains about 18 to 20 rowers, so our Titan family grew when we incorporated this into our repertoire. In this, too, to date our highest national finish has been a respectable Third Place.
The Titans group is also involved New York City Chinatown softball. We have played in this league for at least eight years. Most of the teams at New York-based, and all of us anticipate those summer weekend games. While we struggled in the early years, we persevered and eventually won the league three times.
After a ten-year hiatus, the New York Titans resurfaced as a youth basketball program. In late spring of 2010, we started our league with the help of DAC, the DePhillips Athletic League. Our group is slowly creating its own identity. One of the more fulfilling, and unexpected, reward is to watch our Titan offspring compete and enjoy themselves. The youth Titan program could not exist without the assistance of all the supportive parents. We believe the club is a venue for social gatherings with the theme of good-spirited competition. As with any sport, there are rules and regulations to maintain so it teaches our children cooperation and good sportsmanship. This competition teaches teamwork and self-respect as well as respect for your competitors and respect for the sport itself. It is my opinion that respecting others reflects the Golden Rule – treat as other as you wish to be treated yourself.
Chapter Two:
As I draft this update, we are only days away from the conclusions of the contentious and historical 2016 Presidential Race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This campaign has given us all plenty to think about, especially if we work with young adults.
It should have been noted as Secretary Clinton’s second bid to be our first female President. But as the campaign continued, we got a great deal of trash talking, embellished truth, and mudslinging. It reminded us all that a decent level of civility is required in this country. And, we need to be teaching this to those who follow us.
Today, The NY Titans help teach these values often missing from the campaign. Our program has now become a larger, but leaner machine as the club now has over 150 active young adult members from age seven to 24. Our coaches, board members, and parents have the task of working with over 150 kids for more than 30 weeks. The bulk of our program runs throughout the school year in coordination with the NYC school calendar and has done so for the past 5 or more years. We now have a New Jersey branch with the similar theme … to be a positive influence to the kids that they train and coach. With so many active young adults and coaches/trainers, there are always daily challenges.
The club itself has over 300 players that have worn, or now wear, its colors in this youth basketball arena.
Providing a productive setting for our youth requires quite of bit structure. Today we have about 10 coaches that train all[r1] year round. Temperament, so important to the campaign, is always on display as our coaches train our athletes. Patience, encouragement, and leadership are modeled and ideally transferred when we work with our kids.
Skill building and competition are still a strength of the Titan program, but with our growth comes more management, responsibilities and accountability.
Yes, we want to pass down these positive characteristics are traits that we hope to pass down to our kids.
The joy of competing or the endorphins that are released are still the driving premise that keeps our program fruitful.
The skills that makes us competitive in tournament play are taught at every practice and practices in any match we find ourselves. A disclaimer at this point: As much as we like to be transparent in our workings, we do need to stash away our secret formula.
The health benefits of competition is always a good thing as we encourage our kids to push themselves physically while thinking quickly in the flow of the game.
When competing nationally or locally, it takes quite a bit of restraint and mental prep work. This is the endurance we teach our players.
For many of us, this our first go around as a parent or youth coach in this great US of A culture. It needs to be reiterated: our immigrant parents’ generation was too busy working, trying to make it and adjust to this country. They had little time and energy to take their kids to youth programs or competitions.
These youth programs are now supported by the goliath sports organizations like the NBA and NFL. In the last decade, the NFL has helped the flag circuit of tournaments to encourage kids to participate and develop into football players without the risk of tackle football (concussions and other major injuries). In basketball, we still have youth major brands like the AAU and regional powerhouse Zero Gravity. The 3rd main stream youth sport, baseball, has Little League Nationwide and the Ripken circuit here in the east coast plus multiple private organizers hosting tournaments across the country.
Today, over 35 sets of Titan players and parents have now achieved that coveted sports goal of winning a proverbial Chinese National basketball title. That happened Memorial Day, 2015 when our 18u NY Titan’s team won a nine team tourney defeating Toronto in the finals. Shortly after the 2015 victory, a year later we won the NACBAIT 2016 titles in Dallas in the 15u and 12u divisions. Many of these memories have been captured in the photos on the website and videos on YouTube. Many thanks to the coaches and parents who assisted in these accomplishments. These humble sports titles sit along with the Men’s 35 title from 1999 and placed finishes in our early days.
Our ancestors may appreciate that we honor Asian culture or togetherness with our kids. On Memorial Day weekend 2016, we sent 3 and half teams to Dallas and compete with 70 other Chinese teams. http://www.nacbait.com/ Here we congregate and compete in a North America setting which our Chinese immigrants ancestors made possible when they decided to move to this country.
As we adjust to our multiple visons that we are working on, we recently launched an additional theme/website when we created our separate training division during the summer of 2016. http://www.nytitanstraining.com/
Back to work…. the Titan coaches, board, and all our supporting parents are now tasked with working with the kids in our program and our community. Soon, as we continue to move forward we will be competing front and center against the new technology of gaming….Virtual Reality gaming to coincide with the gamer generation. Our mission statement declares that sports (activity) comes in 3rd place to family first and academics second. We dare to supplement the parent’s participation in our organization and their teaching to help their children become self-sufficient and later become contributors to our society.
Chapter 3:
It has been a little over four years since our last update...
In November 2020, we completed one of the nation’s most historical presidential election that the nation has ever seen, with the highest voter turnout in its proud democratic history. The past four years has brought many gift to the Titans club. However, now, like many basketball clubs all over the United States, they have either shut down or operate on a very limited basis since March 2020 due to the pandemic. Our club and its parents are practicing social distancing while we wait for a vaccine to for COVID 19. At the end of November 2020, the USA has 12.9 million cases out of the 61.8 million worldwide cases; we are under 5% of the world’s population, but have 20% of the global COVID 19’s recorded cases, and unfortunately, we are also running at 18% of the world’s recorded death’s totals. Light may be at the end of the tunnel as two American companies Pfizer/Biontech and Moderna vaccines are emerging from the pack and should be approved by the FDA in early December. By the end 2nd quarter of 2021, these 95% effective vaccines should be distributed to most of the USA population. Fingers crossed: things may return to “normal.”
Before the virus broke, the Titans were operating weekly during the New York City public school academic year. The club was following its 10-month schedule by working with youngsters from ages 8 to 18. In our formative years, former Titan alumnus would coach most of our classes and sessions. In addition to the old-timer alumnus, today we reach out to former college players and high school coaches to do a percentage of our training. Our program teaches basketball with a specific coaching discipline founded on personal aptitude and efficiency. During our workout sessions, we arrange in-house scrimmages after the structured training. Our youth members who started the program about a decade ago are now in their college and graduate school years and many are now young adults in the workforce who have been coming back to play hoops once a week. Logistically, gym time is still a challenge for us, as we operate, on average, in 3 different NYC schools during the year. Currently we have about 100 weekly participants during the school year.
The training program operates as a nonprofit under the AAU umbrella (https://aausports.org) and collects a fee to help cover the cost of the gyms, insurance, AAU membership, administration, and the commitment of the trainers. Most of our youth travel team coaches are parents of program participant. Our club travels locally, regionally, and occasionally cross country to compete in tourneys. Currently, the Titan’s weekly training program does not advertise and has grown accordingly within the community. In our program, we do not discriminate based on talent or ethnicity; however, we recruit cooperative members who willingly join us to practice. While in session, we also limit the size of the class to manage the effectiveness of the session.
We do our best to capture the travel ball experiences with the best travel ball coaching staff possible. Generally in the “travel team” sports culture, the traveling parent is the key to whether the travel aspect has the full travel ball positive experience. We are similar to other “travel teams” in the United States, traveling to different sites to compete, with hotel stays, meals, and team socialization. For many of our parents, this is a first-time generational experience of travel ball with their kids. There are a handful of volunteer parents in each travel age group, who go the extra mile to share their sandwiches, snacks, photos with the other families. We also have several parents who volunteer to film the competition and later upload them on YouTube for everyone’s viewing and subsequent reflections. Most of the parents are instinctively protective of their kids, but that shield is also spread out over to the entire travel entourage.
We believe our training and travel team prices are fair priced to cover basic operating costs. More importantly, we try to refrain from giving discounts to the more talented kids and work hard to provide services or cooperate with those who have limited resources.
As the program grows in size and longevity, we are an active group; we have been fortunate to be invited to play at halftime during NBA basketball games. Our kids, mostly under 14, have the opportunity to play a few minutes under the bright NBA spotlights at the packed Barclay Center on the main court. These opportunities are by-products of our hard-working parents who believe that exercise, team, organizational cooperation still play a major role in their overall a child’s enrichment and enjoyment. Of course, none of these activities are possible if the game of basketball is not enjoyable, so we continue to coach to create continue engagement and healthy participation.
A few years ago, our founding members or 1st generation Titans, had their 40th anniversary and celebrated our bond and friendship. In 1977 our originating players included names like Hung Fei, Francis, Peter, Willie, Russel, Danny, Warren, Andrew, Johnson, Steve, Phillip, and yours truly. In our 2nd year of competitive existence, we added Teddy, who along with our first and most talented basketball star, Danny, helped us achieve our first taste of recreational basketball tournament winning. Unfortunately as a guilty pleasure, playing and winning makes the hard work just a little more enjoyable.
Presently, our youngest Titans have had their share of youth basketball competition and occasional championships. To play basketball with the Titans is a privilege financed by the parents and not a rite of passage; parents usually require their children to maintain their standard of academic excellence, and civic-minded cooperation in and out of the home. As for the level of our play, none of these activities would be possible without the help of the organizers and coaches in each age group. The club travel portion has taken in some solid leaders who work efficiently to juggle every participant's involvement while trying to outlast the competition. From the late Eighties and early Nineties, former Titan players who carried the torch for decades have come back to coach their kids on their teams. Co-Founder and former player Warren was our first youth club coach who without his stoic leadership, we would have been unable to launch the youth club in 2010. It was enormously helpful that Coach Warren played college ball with Polytech School in the late Eighties. Coach Tom and Coach Tony, both inductees of our informal Hall of Fame, returned to coach their kids and a new generation of Titan’s teams. Coach Johnny, our legendary softball star pitcher, and # 3 hitter, also came back to coach the young kids. In the late Nineties, guard Gary has also come back and led his travel group of youngsters. The club has also added 1st generation parent-head coach leaders like Coach Ricky, Coach Andy, and Coach Dinh: all of these in-house coaches have logged in years with the club and their teams, kids and parents. As a team’s in-house travel coach, this volunteer position calls on organization and mentoring skills, all while working on their careers and allocating time to their other family members. Travel Head Coach Steve, Anthony and Paul have also helped successfully coach teams in the nationals.
The history of the Titans is an immigrant story, I believe, as first-generation born American’s adjust to the norms of this adopted or our native country. We now have many success stories; when we started 40 plus years ago, we didn’t know what high school sports were; today, many of our teenagers are not only making their high school teams, a handful now “represent” as team captains. Kudos to the parents for making all this happen and allowing us to share in their efforts to achieve a certain high school sports status. We recently added another college player to our club: Ryan Lau, an original founding Titan youth club member and, the son of one of the youth club co-founders, Wendy, is playing college ball for Hunter College. Cory Madden, a later Titan recruit played college ball for Manhattanville. There are other Titan players in the pipeline who are knocking on the door of college basketball success.
In the Titan’s arena, we can proudly say recent wins in the NACBA and our annual national’s tournament has been quite satisfying. Most recently, our 18u team won in Chicago in 2019 out of field of nine North American teams. In 2018 in Philadelphia, our 13u and 15u teams also won their NACBA division and it was quite an enriching experience for our players, members, and teams. We also need to mention that along the way, our teams have also sustained humbling tourney losses. Our youth travel teams over the past ten years have now traveled to places like Boston, Minneapolis, Montreal, Dallas, Wisconsin, Philadelphia, and most recently in Chicago. If the pandemic is under control, we hope to compete sometime during the summer 2021 in Florida.
Overall, we continue to stay in our lane, cooperate, and operate as proficiently as possible. We understand there are other productive sports clubs in the area, so parents have their choice of where their children compete. We are now humbled when parents and their children choose to play with the Titans; but more importantly, we are happy to see them creating their own Titan’s identity, friendships, mini families, memories, and their own sports legacy.
We will continue to refine our organization to create that optimal platform and structure where children, teenagers and young adults play, compete, and have fun together. If the members continue to enjoy the game through their adulthood, we feel we have been a small contributor to their growth of continued physical activity and the enjoyment of the game of hoops.
The club doesn’t exist without the parents. We can’t thank them enough and a special shout out to those in the background who make all this happen.