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It was the first day of the prestigious International Sepaktakraw Federation World Cup in Daejeon, South Korea, and the US national team had a problem: they didn’t have their jerseys with them.
The America’s Sepak Takraw team, made up of players from Minnesota and states across the country, had been raising money over the previous weeks so they could wear custom jerseys for the competition. The team ordered the jerseys from a store in Thailand to ship to Minnesota, but they hadn’t arrived before the team left.
That’s where Chotayaporn Higashi, the mother of team member Christ Moo, came into play. Higashi, who lives near Bangkok, Thailand, went to the store, picked up a second load of jerseys and boarded a plane to Seoul. When she landed, she gave her to a relative of team member Jim Thao, who drove her to Daejeon. As the Americans lined up for their semifinals, they looked like serious contenders.
They played the role too. The US team won two gold medals at the competition in late November, beating Germany, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iran to triumph in both the traditional three-on-three competition and the four-on-four competition.
It was an extraordinary achievement for a group of players who had never played together in a sport that is still little known in the United States.
“We haven’t competed at international level for a while,” team member Ker Cha wrote in an email to Sahan Journal. “It just feels good to be back.”
Cha, who is from Minnesota, extended his stay abroad after the tournament and shared the team’s victory via email.
Also known as kick volleyball, Sepak Takraw is an acrobatic sport in which teams of two to four players compete on opposite sides of a court and volley a ball back and forth using all parts of their bodies except their hands.
It is similar in many ways to soccer tennis – a soccer training exercise in which small groups of players stand on opposite sides of a short net and attempt to bounce the ball back and forth without bouncing it twice on their side of the court.
Sepak Takraw is very popular in Southeast Asia, especially in countries like Malaysia and Thailand, and has been a part of the Asian Games since the 1990 edition in Beijing, China.
Cha got his start in the sport as a child when he started following his father and brother to the local parks. Lee Pao Xiong, director of the Center for Hmong Studies at Concordia University and chairman of USA Sepak Takraw, said his love of the game similarly developed at a young age.
“Growing up on the projects in the early ’80s, we couldn’t wait for school to be over to play — just go out and hang out and play that sport,” Xiong said.
Ahead of the international competition, Xiong and a handful of other senior officials at the US organization Sepak Takraw called players and contacts across the country to see who might be interested and available to represent the United States in South Korea.
They had some talented players to choose from. Some of the American players, like Thao from Minneapolis, had tournament experience abroad and had success with previous American teams.
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But the players had never all played together before, and the road to the tournament would require a significant amount of sacrifice. Despite modest donations and sponsorships from a handful of local businesses including Hmong Home Health Care and St Paul sports bar Cup & Cheers, the players had to pay for their own flights to Daejeon.
Before flying to South Korea, however, players were told to report to the Twin Cities so they could meet and practice for two days before traveling abroad. Xiong was not a member of the traveling party, but made sure to get his point across to the players throughout the tournament.
“I kept sending them Facebook Messenger messages. I kept telling them, “Failure is not an option. You represent the United States of America – bring back the gold!’” Xiong said.
As it turned out, the two days of practice were all the American team needed. The six-player team, all of Southeast Asian descent, achieved everything they set out to do in South Korea. Winners included Cha and Thao from Minnesota, Moo from Iowa, Oo Reh from Nebraska, Yan Naing Soe from Indiana and Jim Thao from California.
The players were coached by Texas’ Jeremy Mirken, while Minnesota’s Gao Chang also traveled as team manager.
“I’m surprised and not surprised,” Xiong said of the team’s success. “I am surprised that within a short period of time they are able to collaborate and work together and leverage each other’s strengths and perform.”
Team members want success in South Korea to serve as a launch pad to further increase the game’s popularity in the United States. The Twin Cities, with their large Hmong community, is one area where the game appears to have taken root.
Xiong said the funds raised when Minneapolis hosted the 2019 Super Bowl helped fund the construction of three special Sepak Takraw courts in St. Paul. These courts have helped top players like Cha and Thao stay in shape and introduced the game to a range of new people.
Cha wrote he hopes the United States could support women’s teams in the future, and Xiong said he would like to see a professional league in the country. Thao wrote that soccer, another internationally popular game that has grown in popularity in the United States in recent years, could serve as a model for Sepak Takraw.
“I think if we start driving more engagement and interest in training programs, recreational activities, schools and the States everywhere, within 10 years it will become a new and popular sport in America,” said Thao, who has also traveled abroad. wrote in an email to Sahan Journal.
A number of team members traveled to Thailand to compete in another sepak takraw competition, while other team members continued on to South Korea. However, many of the players will reunite in St. Paul on Jan. 8 when the team hosts a celebration at Cup & Cheers.
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