In U.S., This Coach Is One of a Kind

In China today, there are 2,000 professional table tennis coaches. In the United States there is only one.

Henan Li Ai became the U.S. Table Tennis Assn.’s first full-time coach early this year. She and her husband, LiGuo Ai, also one of the world’s top table tennis coaches, now make their home in the United States.

In their native country, the Ais could not walk the streets without being recognized.

“We had good jobs and a high social position,” LiGuo said. “Henan, in particular, is very famous in China. In the United States, we are nothing because table tennis is nothing.”

So why the move?

LiGuo, formerly associate editor of China’s largest sports newspaper, China Sports News, said he “began to see the world as it really was after the Cultural Revolution. It opened my eyes. The more I saw, the more I wanted to know. And I wanted to write what I saw and what I thought. But that was not always possible in China. We were limited in what we could write, although that situation is improving now.”

LiGuo said his love for the United States began shortly after he was imprisoned on a Chinese work farm in the late 1960s for criticizing a top government official.

The Ais began to consider a move to America when LiGuo spent six months in 1981 giving coaching clinics in the United States. The next year Henan was hired by the table tennis association to conduct a series of coaching clinics, too. In the process, she was befriended by Richard and Sue Butler, table tennis enthusiasts in Iowa City, Iowa, who helped her obtain her green card, enabling her to continue working in America.

Last July the Chinese government allowed LiGuo and daughter Li, 11, to join Henan in the United States.

“The Chinese government didn’t want us to go, and they would have refused if all of us had been living in China at the time,” LiGuo said. “But since Henan was here, the government wanted to promote good relations with the United States. They were wise enough to be sure we were happy.”

The adjustment to living in the United States hasn’t been that difficult, Henan said.

“As coaches in China, we traveled a lot--to almost every country in the world--so we were familiar with other cultures and life styles,” she said.

Now the Ais have begun the five-year process of becoming U.S. citizens.

Before arriving here, Henan, now 41, was the youngest of China’s three elite women coaches, and coached China to the world championship in 1975. A decade earlier, as a player, she was a member of the country’s first world championship squad.

Since coming to the United States, she has coached the U.S. men’s and women’s teams to five gold medals and one bronze at the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas, Venezuela. Five of her former students in China are world champions.

LiGuo, a member of the Chinese National Team from 1961-71 and coach of the People’s Liberation Army team for 10 years, is considered one of the game’s top theoreticians. LiGuo, 43, helps his wife in her coaching duties, while seeking business opportunities in the United States and translating the Ais’ table tennis training manual into English. The manual still is used by all of China’s top table tennis players.

Not surprisingly, their daughter is an outstanding young player, considered one of the best in the United States in both the 11-and-under and 13-and-under groups.

“I think we made a good decision to move here,” LiGuo said. “We have more chances, more opportunities to do what we want.

“It is a great challenge to make table tennis bigger in the United States, but this country has great potential. People play Ping Pong in their basements or dens as recreation. If we can change people’s attitudes, if we can make them realize it is a serious sport, the situation will change rapidly.”