The Unlikely Rise of an American Team in a Sport You’ve Never Heard Of

When Ker Cha received the decision in regards to the World Cup, it had been greater than two years since he had touched a takraw ball. Now he had lower than two months to lose the 20 kilos he had placed on through the coronavirus pandemic and get again into taking part in form. Plus, he realized he would have solely two days to coach along with his teammates earlier than they took off for the 2022 International Sepak Takraw Federation World Cup in South Korea.

So he received kicking.

The exhilarating sport of sepak takraw is basically volleyball, besides that gamers can’t use their fingers and primarily kick the ball over the online. Cha is thought for his uncommon type of service, one which makes him probably the greatest American gamers within the sport. The recreation’s title comes from the Malay phrase for kick (sepak) and the Thai phrase for the woven ball, which is roughly the scale of a giant grapefruit. Takraw’s historical past traces to the Nineteen Forties in Penang, and it’s an enormously standard sport in Malaysia, Thailand and swaths of Southeast Asia.

Cha, 32, is one among three gamers on the U.S. staff who descended from the Hmong individuals, an Indigenous inhabitants of Southeast Asia. His dad and mom fled Laos for Thailand simply earlier than he was born, they usually relocated to America when he was simply two months previous. Other gamers are descendants of the Karen and Karenni individuals in Malaysia and Myanmar. Cha mentioned that competing internationally is a approach for them to honor their cultural heritage and promote a sport that they hope may achieve a foothold within the United States.

“We hope that winning in these tournaments helps us to grow the sport,” Cha mentioned. “We want to help it spread at every level, from being offered at public schools to being played at the Olympics.”

In the United States, sepak takraw is usually referred to as “kick volleyball” — a tough translation however an apt description. Players line up on reverse sides of a 44-by-20-foot courtroom with a 5-foot-high web between them. Traditionally, there are three gamers a facet: a setter, a spiker and a server. It’s precisely like volleyball in that the objective is to win factors by smashing the ball onto the bottom of your opponent’s territory. It’s precisely the alternative of volleyball in that you need to use each a part of your physique besides your fingers.

Cha employs what’s often called a “horse-kick” serve. A teammate tosses him the ball from the nook of the online, and in a balletic flourish, Cha turns his again to the online, lifts his foot above his head into an virtually vertical break up and kicks the ball backwards over his physique. Typically, a staff receiving a serve is better off as a result of they’re able to arrange their offense for a spike, however Cha’s serves are sometimes unreturnable.

“There aren’t many people who serve the ball the way I do,” Cha mentioned.

At the World Cup in 2022, Cha helped information Team USA to gold-medal wins in 3-on-3 and 4-on-4 competitors within the second division. It was the primary time an American staff had received double golds on the occasion. (It was additionally the primary takraw World Cup since 2011.) They defended these gold medals on the King’s Cup in Thailand this summer time, which is taken into account the annual marquee occasion for the game.

Cha mentioned that a lot of the credit score for the American staff’s current resurgence goes to Jeremy Mirken, an unlikely advocate of the game who can be the nationwide staff coach. Mirken first began taking part in takraw whereas dwelling in Northern California within the early 2000s as a technique to cross-train for the same kicking sport referred to as footbag web.

At the time, there was a recurring recreation within the car parking zone of a condominium complicated populated primarily by individuals of Southeast Asian descent. On Fridays, they’d clear the vehicles off the blacktop and chalk a takraw courtroom on it. Mirken marveled on the approach the gamers would commit their our bodies to spikes and blocks that regarded like bicycle kicks, their backs smacking onto the pavement dozens of occasions a set. He was additionally struck by the best way individuals from so many nations got here collectively as a neighborhood beneath the umbrella of this single sport.

“They were very patient with me, a random white guy, who showed up and kind of sucked for a while,” mentioned Mirken, who’s now a school-based speech-language pathologist in Texas. “But the fire was lit. I didn’t just want to play, but I wanted to become great. I wanted to compete at the highest level.”

Mirken performed for the U.S. staff as a setter between 2010 and 2012, profitable a number of medals. He then pivoted to a brand new place: coach.

“I choose who starts and who comes off the bench,” he mentioned. Joking, he added: “Fortunately, we don’t really have to deal with that on Team USA since we barely have enough players to have a bench.”

As a board member of Sepak Takraw of USA, a nonprofit group whose intention is to assist the nationwide staff, Mirken scours the nation searching for promising gamers and raises funds for staff journey. The whole value to compete in Korea was round $11,000, and the price for Thailand was round $24,000. And there’s no purse for groups that medal. Players pay their very own approach.

For July’s King’s Cup, Mirken managed to assemble the primary U.S. girls’s staff in almost three a long time. Kristal Luna, an assistant soccer coach at Sonoma State, first realized about takraw lower than a 12 months in the past. She tailored her abilities from soccer and Teqball, one other kicking sport that may be a mixture of soccer, takraw and desk tennis. She would practice within the morning earlier than her gamers arrived for his or her first apply, and they’d usually discuss to her in regards to the upcoming event whereas attempting to juggle the takraw ball.

The girls’s staff didn’t make it out of the group stage in Thailand, however Luna nonetheless cherished the expertise. “People were like, ‘We’re not ready,’” she mentioned. “Of course we’re not ready! But you have to start somewhere.”

Meanwhile, the lads discovered themselves in gold-medal rematches towards Iran in each the 3-on-3 and 4-on-4 competitions. And as soon as once more, Cha’s serve proved to be decisive, with the American staff bringing dwelling gold medals in every class. Their current success signifies that at subsequent 12 months’s King’s Cup, they’re prone to be slotted within the prime division, competing towards nations with who obtain authorities financing and choose their rosters from hundreds of potential gamers. Cha, who has been coaching or taking part in day by day since he received that telephone name for the World Cup virtually a 12 months in the past, mentioned he will likely be prepared.

Mirken hopes that each one this profitable will make it simpler for him to seek out extra gamers and more cash to assist not solely the expansion of the staff, but additionally the expansion of the sport.

“I’m always happy when we win medals, but that’s not the goal,” he mentioned. “My goal is for more Americans to see this sport and to decide for themselves if it’s cool enough to catch on. I know it could be huge here.”