Chew Went a Little Over the Top Building a Place to Play
After Don Chew emigrated to Orange County from Thailand in 1972, he wanted to play badminton but found few playing facilities and very little interest among his new countrymen.
Today, Chew begins hosting some of the best badminton players in the world during the U.S. Badminton Open Championships at his Orange County Badminton Club in Orange. The finals are Saturday.
The $3-million club has hosted the annual tournament since 1996. The club was recently named a satellite training facility for USA Badminton, which has its other facility in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“It’s hard not to choose such an exceptional facility,” said Holly Martin, executive director of USA Badminton. “It’s a wonderful, first-rate club that was designed specifically for badminton. You don’t find that very often.”
Inside the 40,000-square-foot pink building are 18 courts with 30-foot ceilings and 400-watt lights.
The walls and ceilings of the club are painted dark green to increase visibility of the white shuttlecock, and a special air conditioning system cools the air without disrupting play. With his fingers crossed, Chew went so far as to have bleachers installed on both sides of the courts, providing seating for more than 1,800.
“We carefully researched clubs in Canada and Asia before designing the club,” said Montri Chew, Don’s 31-year-old son, who helps run the club. “Everyone who has seen the club has given us compliments.”
Don Chew, 57, says all the compliments and possible profits are not the reasons he built the club. After all, he already was financially secure, thanks to his commercial printing company that sits behind the badminton club. Chew said he simply wanted to give something back to a sport and a country he loved.
“I’m a businessman and if this was a business decision, it was a bad one,” Chew said. “I love the sport and I have dreamed about this club for a long time.”
Chew said his passion for badminton began when he picked up his first racket at 7.
“Badminton taught me patience and how to be a fighter,” Chew said. “You have to have discipline to train and that [discipline] taught me to be a good person.”
After arriving in the United States, he and his wife, Kim, owned and operated two restaurants. He later learned to operate a press at a local printing company, which led him to start K&D; Graphics out of his home in Anaheim in 1981.
The company grew, and in 1984 Chew moved it into a building in Orange. After hours, employees and family members would clear the floors and play badminton on the two courts he had installed.
In February, 1996, on another lot in Orange, ground was broken for the badminton club, which opened five months later. Chew moved his graphics business to the same location.
With one goal accomplished, Chew has set his sights on another.
He would like to see the sport he loves lose the reputation of backyard recreation in favor of the fast-paced, hard-hitting game he plays.
“Europe recently rediscovered it and it’s always been popular in Asia,” he said. “I think there is room for badminton in America, too.”
One of the people Chew hopes will help ignite a badminton fervor in the United States is Garden Grove’s May Mangkalakiri, 15, who won the 14-and-under junior national tournament last year after only playing the sport for 10 months.
“I feel very lucky to train here,” said Mangkalakiri, who spends more than three hours a day, three days a week at the club. “There are more courts here, the people are really nice, and you don’t get kicked off for basketball or volleyball players.”
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It’s a Racket
* What: 1998 U.S. Badminton Open Championships
* When: Today-Saturday
* Where: Orange County Badminton Club, 1432 Main St., Suite A, Orange
* Basics: Players will compete in men’s and women’s singles and doubles and mixed doubles for $35,000. Representative countries are expected to include: Belgium, Canada, China, Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), Ghana, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, Poland and the United States.
* Schedule: Today--qualifying and first round, 9 a.m.-10 p.m.; Wednesday--round of 16, 3-10 p.m.; Thursday, quarterfinals, 3-10 p.m.; Friday--semifinals start at 5; Saturday--finals start at 5
* Tickets: Free general admission to today’s matches; $5 Wednesday-Thursday; $10 Friday; $15 Saturday. All-week pass $25.
* Information: (714) 639-6222