SPORTS | Striving for excellence
13 August 2007
Baseball Icon Cal Ripken Using Sports to Bridge Cultures
Ex-Baltimore Oriole great visits China as new U.S. sports envoy
Washington -- Baseball Hall of Fame player Cal Ripken Jr. is taking his talents teaching kids the fundamentals of the sport to a higher level as a new U.S. State Department public diplomacy sports envoy.
Ripken’s first assignment will be visiting China October 28-November 6, 2007, to train Chinese youngsters in the Asian country’s budding baseball program.
Ripken, a shortstop and third baseman in his 21-year career with the Baltimore Orioles, said August 13 at the State Department that he plans to use his new position to bridge the gap between people of different languages and cultures.
Introduced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes, under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, Ripken said that sports, and baseball in particular, is “very magical. It can go across cultural lines; it can appeal to all kids and all people.”
“Sport is a great way to teach teamwork and to teach how to deal with people, to understand that preparation is important in all aspects of your life,” said Ripken.
He said he will train Chinese youngsters in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with the hope of planting a few seeds that will “grow” the game of baseball in China. Ripken said he also hoped to visit other countries as the U.S. sports envoy.
Known as the “Ironman” for playing in a record-breaking 2,632 consecutive major league games, Ripken said serving as a sports envoy is not a political statement for him.
Rather, the assignment is about “using baseball for good reasons, to cross cultural lines,” he said.
He told his State Department audience: “I think it's amazing to watch kids interact [who] can't speak and can't communicate” with each other because of language differences “but do have sport in common. There's a respect, there's a credibility that's born” in the dedication required to achieve skill in baseball and “anything [else] if you’re willing to work hard for it.”
REMARKS OF RICE, HUGHES
Secretary Rice said Ripken’s work with kids did not begin with his new sports envoy role. The secretary said the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation, named for the ex-ballplayer’s father, uses baseball to teach “life's lessons” to disadvantaged youth. In addition, she said, he built the Ripken Youth Baseball Academy, which she said is the largest baseball academy in the United States.
At that academy in Aberdeen, Maryland, where Ripken went to high school, thousands of young people learn the finer points of baseball and deepen their love for playing the game, said Rice.
In addition, Ripken is hosting the Cal Ripken World Series in Aberdeen for youngsters 12 years old and younger. Korea and Japan are among the six foreign countries with teams in the August 11-18 event.
Ripken said, “It's difficult for me to communicate with the Koreans -- I don't speak Korean -- [or Japanese], but when you put [the youngsters] out on the baseball field and you start seeing them … the communication obstacles go away.”
Hughes said the U.S. public diplomacy envoy position was created in 2006 as part of a larger effort to encourage Americans from all walks of life “to join in America’s public diplomacy efforts.” Through their personal examples, the envoys “become leaders in America's efforts to engage in a positive and constructive dialogue with the world,” Hughes said.
The first State Department public diplomacy sports envoy, figure skating star Michelle Kwan, recently returned from Russia on behalf of the United States, where her “message of working hard and dreaming big resonated with young people,” said Hughes. (See “U.S. Skater Calls Lessons of Being a Champion Athlete Universal.”)
Hughes added that the sports envoys are “helping us reach out to that vital audience of young people” and provide a way “to counter extremism and foster greater tolerance and respect for diversity and differences.”
Attending the event were 12 baseball coaches from China, who are improving their coaching skills at Ripken’s baseball academy in Aberdeen.
Hughes said the foreign participants in the U.S. baseball exchanges are learning “much more than new coaching or hitting techniques, as important as they are. They're also building the people-to-people connections that are so important to the future peace and security of our world.”
Two of the coaches, Sam Wang Guangyuan and Jean Zhang Jianping, told USINFO through an interpreter that they are learning “baseball theory” and “baseball training methods” that are different from those in China.
Guangyuan, coach of a team from Guangzhou, said his favorite major league player is shortstop Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees, while Jianping, who coaches a squad in the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu province, admires Taiwanese pitcher Chin-hui Tsao of the Los Angeles Dodgers. (See “First Chinese Baseball Players Signed To Play in United States.”)
A transcript of remarks by Rice, Hughes and Ripken at the event is available on the State Department Web site.
