UW Volleyball: Huskies take off on an adventure

The Chinese have a saying. Actually, the Chinese have a lot of sayings, and as crazy as it sounds, one of them goes something like this:

Act with the spirit of Chinese women's volleyball players.

To millions of people in the world's most populous nation, one who behaves like a female volleyball player works hard and perseveres.

Another much older proverb asks:

If you don't go into the cave of the tiger, how are you going to get its cub?

In other words, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

UW in China


The itinerary for the Washington volleyball team's trip to China. Times listed are local unless noted:

Today: Depart Sea-Tac, 2:45 p.m. PDT

Tuesday: Depart Tokyo, 6:25 p.m.

Arrive Beijing, 9:20 p.m.

Wednesday: Tour Forbidden City, 1:15 p.m.

Tour Tian An Men Square, 4 p.m.

Thursday: Match vs. Beijing Jiaotong University, 7 p.m.

Friday: Match vs. Beijing Astronomic University, 7 p.m.

Saturday: Tour Great Wall of China, 9:30 a.m.

Tour Ming Tomb, 3 p.m.

Sunday: Rickshaw tour, 9 a.m.

June 19: Arrive Shanghai, 11:40 a.m.

June 20: Match vs. Shanghai Youth National Team, 9:30 a.m.

June 21: Match vs. Shanghai Junior National Team, 9:30 a.m.

June 22: Tour Yu Garden Market Place, 9 a.m.

June 23: Depart Shanghai, 9:10 a.m.

This afternoon, 12 members of the University of Washington's national champion volleyball team board a plane for a 15-hour flight to Beijing. Once in the cave of the tiger, they plan to work hard, persevere and, they hope, enjoy the adventure of a lifetime.

"It's so weird," Huskies team captain Courtney Thompson said. "I feel like I'm going to get there and be, like, 'Holy cow! I'm in China!' "

Like most of her teammates, Thompson, the UW setter and emotional leader, will be making her first trip to Asia. The 12-day journey will include four volleyball matches, two in Beijing and two in Shanghai. The rest of the trip promises to be an immersion in Chinese culture, old and new.

"There's going to be the Great Wall, the Forbidden City," Thompson said. "We were in class the other day and a group did a presentation on Starbucks at the Great Wall of China. And I'm like, 'I'm going to be there!' "

It's been 18 months since Washington coach Jim McLaughlin was approached by a UW alumnus about a possible trip to China. It was a daunting proposition: China's national team is the defending Olympic champion, and the sport is wildly popular in China's sprawling cities.

"The volleyball culture there is like the NBA or NFL here," McLaughlin said. "It's especially a phenomenon for women volleyball players, who are treated the same or even better than the men."

The more McLaughlin poked around, the more the idea appealed to him. The Chinese success is built on a foundation of discipline and consistency, the very traits he tries to instill in his teams.

"The Chinese are the best in the world," he said. "They're fundamentally sound, they play fast, they play the percentages. In many ways, they're very much the way we strive to be."

Last fall, several weeks before his team steamrolled through the NCAA tournament by winning all six playoff matches without dropping a single game, McLaughlin sat down with the Huskies. A tour of China, he told them, could either focus on finding intense competition, or it could be a broader opportunity for the cultural experience of a lifetime.

"We threw it out there," McLaughlin recalled. "They said, 'Jim, we want to kick butt when we're on the court, and then flip a switch and have fun exploring China.' "

The decision was made.

The Huskies will leave for China just nine days after another women's volleyball powerhouse got back home. Nebraska, the team that Washington defeated last December in the NCAA championship, just completed its 10-day tour of Beijing and Shanghai.

"The country is inspiring, awesome," Nebraska coach John Cook said. "China will be the next world power, and our kids got a chance to see it for themselves."

Cook said the Chinese players and coaches loved meeting American players, relishing the chance to hang with them and to practice their English. The final scores became secondary to the daily thrill of sharing the passion for a game with young women from the other side of the planet.

China has a professional women's volleyball league, and Cook chose to schedule most of his scrimmages and matches against pro teams. By contrast, the Huskies will face the two teams that squared off for this year's Chinese collegiate championships, Beijing Jiaotong University and Beijing Astronomic University.

In Shanghai, they'll play two elite junior-national teams that include players who hope to be on the Chinese team when Beijing hosts the 2008 Olympics.

McLaughlin, who has a reputation for studying film and being thoroughly prepared, professes not to be fazed about facing four teams he has no chance to scout.

"I think what's really important at this point is for us to know more about ourselves," he said. "If we train the way we should, whether we're playing China or the Pac-10, then we have a chance to be competitive in every match."

Thompson agrees. Sort of.

"You always want to win. I mean, everyone wants to win, it's human nature," she said. "But I think overall what we want to get out of it is improvement. We're not trying to win the national title over there.

"We're representing the United States of America, and that's different and it's personal. It's country versus country, and a lot of us haven't ever done that."

The Huskies will cross the international dateline, and try to quickly adjust to a 15-hour time difference. They'll tour Beijing's Forbidden City and Tian An Men Square at 10 p.m. PDT tomorrow night, when it will be Wednesday afternoon in Beijing. Their first match, Seattle time, is 4 a.m. Wednesday.

Beijing, a city of 20 million, can be stifling hot this time of year, with temperatures in the 90s or higher. Hot weather means good business for TCL, a Chinese air-conditioning company.

A recent print ad for TCL is headlined: "The champion spirit is: imagine it, achieve it." In an interview, a TCL executive revealed the source of his company's inspiration. TCL, he said, wants to "learn from the women's volleyball team spirit to achieve top-three market share of Chinese air conditions."

As Jim McLaughlin might say, that's pretty cool.