RIO DE JANEIRO – They talk about Olympic journeys, and ours goes back 17 years.
Starting more than 6,000 miles from here.
When he was 3 1/2 feet tall.
Since then, Phillip Chew has grown up to be among the world’s elite.
Meanwhile, I haven’t grown up at all, not a single inch taller today and still, basically, a clown – a sportswriting clown – just minus the big red nose.
“Oh, yeah, I remember,” Chew said this week, recalling the two previous columns I’ve written about him, the first when he was 5 and the second nine years later.
It was in that latter story, after Chew had begun collecting junior badminton titles like other kids his age were collecting Pokemon cards, that he called the Olympics “attainable,” his grandfather, Don, assuring, “I wouldn’t count this guy out.”
Somewhat incredibly, we both made it to Rio, Chew certainly the more deserving one and, by a considerable margin, the better bet along the way.
The journey is astounding, though, when considering that our initial sit-down, following Chew’s first national championship, was so long ago he spent the entire interview calling me “Uncle Jeff.”
The Olympics gave us the “Miracle on Ice.” This story is more the “Miracle Happening Twice.”
An awful lot could have derailed this dual path from then until now, 17 years longer than gold-medal winning U.S. gymnast Laurie Hernandez has been alive. But Chew refused to let go of his dream and I, not unlike a bad odor, just refused to go away.
“To represent our family and know that my grandfather helped his own grandson make the Olympics,” Chew, now 22, said, “it’s a very big deal for him and for all of us.”
Don started the Orange County Badminton Club two decades ago, the organization doing nothing less than significantly advancing the sport in America. Of the seven players here representing the U.S., six have trained at the facility for at least part of their careers.
By comparison, there are 46 nations competing in Rio that don’t have as many as six athletes total.
Howard Shu attended Canyon High and UCLA and made it to Brazil to compete in men’s singles. But that’s only after abandoning his original goal, one that might have been even more ambitious.
“I always tell people I wanted to be the first Jeremy Lin,” said Shu, 25, who quit organized basketball after his freshman year of high school.
Still, Shu remains a big hoops fan and managed to get a picture with Kevin Durant during the opening ceremony.
He wears two pairs of socks for all of his matches, a practice he began during that one basketball season at Canyon.
So, now that he’s met Durant and stood face-to-chest with DeAndre Jordan and DeMarcus Cousins, does he think his idea of being Jeremy Lin before Jeremy Lin was feasible?
“No, not a chance,” said Shu, who, at 6-foot-1 is just 2 inches shorter than Lin. “But I would love to see those guys get on our court and try a little badminton. To be at the Olympics and be able to watch those guys live and say they’re my teammates … I mean, it’s amazing.”
So is a life so routine that seeing Michael Phelps walk by is no more unusual than seeing Novak Djokovic practicing is no more unusual then seeing Usain Bolt eating, all of which Shu has done without having to leave the athletes’ village.
And to think all of this has been made possibly by first chasing after something called a shuttlecock.
Badminton players prefer to call them birdies. But, come on, how many birdies who envision soaring this high really make it? Especially when this game’s birdies lack actual wings?
“When I walk out, it’s not going to just be me and my racquet, you know,” Shu said. “I’m going to walk out knowing that I have my family and friends behind me and also representing 300 million people back at home.”
This can be an unpredictable sport, one in which the flight of the shuttlecock – and thus the results of enormous matches – can be affected by things as everyday as air conditioning.
Still, it will take something of a miracle for the Americans to medal here, seeing how America never has medaled in Olympic badminton.
This group is the flip side of the U.S. basketball teams in Rio, teams that have won all their games by margins that sound like punchlines and would, in fact, be funny if they weren’t also true.
The Americans are chasing the world in badminton, the starting blocks for so many players remaining in Orange County.
“Sometimes, even when you’re playing in the U.S. Open, there aren’t a lot of people there,” said Eva Lee, 30, a second-time Olympian and Villa Park High graduate. “And the people there are cheering for like Taiwan or Japan. You’re like ‘Ah, what about us?’”
Personally, I’ll be cheering for these guys. Can’t help it. I love underdogs, the bigger the better, and these Americans are among the biggest here.
Besides, what kind of uncle would I be otherwise?
Contact the writer: jmiller@scng.com
