Thriving in Obscurity : Although Far Outside Mainstream of American Sports, Badminton Still Flourishes at Club, High School Level

As obscure as the international sport it serves, the ivy-shrouded Manhattan Beach Badminton Club rises on a hill overlooking the downtown shoreline. Most of this bustling community’s residents don’t know it exists.

The 250 club members like it that way.

“We’re not even listed in the Yellow Pages,” club president Stan Johnson said.

But internationally, “everyone in the world knows about this little outpost,” said Joy Kitzmiller, a two-time national singles champion and the gold medalist at last year’s Olympic Festival. “We’ve put Manhattan Beach on the badminton map.”

Over the years the Manhattan Beach facility, which sports a swimming pool, hot tub, two barbecue cabanas and a meeting hall, has evolved into more of a social club, yet it serves as a training ground for selected U.S. National Team members.

Some club members lament that the seclusion they cherish helps isolate the sport from mainstream America. To most Americans, badminton is synonymous with back-yard barbecues and Fourth of July picnics.

That is not the case internationally. In England, for example, there are 200,000 registered badminton players. In the United States there are only 2,000.

“Participation in the world is in the millions,” said Dean Schoppe, a U.S. National Team member and a member of the Manhattan Beach club.

There are only two indoor facilities in the West, Manhattan Beach and at Arizona State University, although the sport flourishes in the high schools of Orange County and in Long Beach.

The CIF Moore League--composed of Poly, Millikan, Lakewood, Wilson, Jordan and Compton high schools--plays a coed schedule. Jordan is the defending Southern Section champion.

Dues in the Manhattan Beach club are cheap, but there is a two-year waiting period to become a member. Each year every member is required to put in 16 hours of volunteer work to help maintain the club.

Guest numbers are limited and they must pay to play on one of the club’s five courts. Kitzmiller said that limiting guests makes it difficult for her to train, because there are no female players of her caliber in the club.

Badminton is a strenuous sport, club members say. To elite players, badminton requires six to eight hours of daily practice. Schoppe estimates that in an average match, which is scored much the same as volleyball, a player runs the equivalent of 9 to 12 miles of wind sprints and hits between 600 and 2,000 shots.

Even those who enjoy the club’s social atmosphere cite the benefits of badminton on their cardiovascular systems. “We gather and play badminton for several hours (on Friday nights) and then go into the (meeting hall) and drink wine and eat hors d’oeuvres,” Johnson said.

Internationally, it is estimated that badminton is second only to soccer in the number of participants. In Asia, title matches often draw standing-room-only crowds of 20,000 to arenas designed specifically for the sport.

“When I play in Asia, I go out for a jog on a Saturday morning, and in any town, on every piece of flat land, there are people playing it,” Schoppe said.

“The potential in this country for this sport is huge,” said Martin French, president of the U.S. Badminton Assn. and a club member. “But as far as this sport getting recognition (from the general public) we are eons away.”

According to Wilson High Coach Dan Heston, the high school game is dominated by foreign students. “Nine out of 10 players are Asians,” he said.

The game is also popular in the Middle East, as well as in England and its former colonies. Tariq Wadood, a top pro player from Pakistan, is the U.S. National Team coach.

Founded in a roadside bathhouse in 1936, the secluded badminton club in Manhattan Beach is in a residential neighborhood at 18th Street and Valley Drive. The facilities are considered to be among “the best in the world,” according to Wadood.

Yet the courts are rather stark. There are five side-by-side inside a cavernous gymnasium. Each serves for both singles or doubles, much like a tennis court, but the dimensions are about half the size. Nets are tautly drawn five feet above the playing surface.

Six fluorescent lights hang down on long cords from the ceiling, providing what Schoppe said is the perfect amount of indirect light needed to see a shuttlecock that can travel at speeds of up to 100 m.p.h.

The walls and ceilings are painted a drab green. The playing floor is designed specifically for the stress a badminton player receives on his knees and joints. It is composed of soft wood, painted with a gum-tar surface.

“You couldn’t play basketball on it because the wood would crack under the pressure of a bouncing ball,” Schoppe explained.

While members like their privacy, some would like to see badminton take off in this country. Said Wadood, the club pro: “In the United States it gets no media attention. Little kids (in my country) see it on TV and they make idols. Here, they don’t see it so the image is bad.”

However, the facility is lacking in some of the things it would take to publicize the sport. “It’s God awful when we do television in here,” Schoppe said of the lighting.

Although the U.S. Open has been held there three times, there isn’t space for bleachers.

“For training this is the best facility,” Wadood said. “But for tournaments we can’t seat enough people.”

At major events, according to Johnson, “When we get down to the finals we bring in some portable bleachers and set them up on the other courts. That’s not the best way to do it.”

In 1974, the club’s board of directors was rebuked by the Manhattan Beach City Council when it asked for a permit to expand. Nearby residents feared increased noise and parking problems if the additions of two more courts and a viewing loft were allowed. Later, the city acted on residential complaints and limited it from issuing more than 250 memberships.

The club’s atmosphere is different from that at a tennis club, according to members who turned out on a recent Sunday afternoon.

“A tennis club has a parking lot filled with Mercedes-Benzes and other yuppie cars. That isn’t the case here,” Johnson said. “Here, most people don’t even know what vocation you are in. It’s a different culture, a family organization.”

But their interest in such an obscure and misunderstood sport often leads to ridicule. Johnson remembers the ribbing he took from fellow insurance agents when they heard he had joined the club eight years ago.

“They wanted to know if I was going to try out for the wimp Olympics,” he said.

He then invited a couple of them to play a game or two at the club.

“I watched them die on the court,” he said.