Taiyuan Brave Dragons

choi

Jason Zengerle, Big East. New York Times, Feb 26, 2012.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/2 ... by-jim-yardley.html
(book review on Jim Yardley, Brave Dragon; A Chinese basketball team, an American coach, and two cultures clashing. Knopf, 2012)

Quote:

"Yardley’s time with the Brave Dragons afforded him an entry into contemporary China, a rising power that is nonetheless plagued by self-doubt. * * * Liu Tie[, Brave Dragons assistant coach,] also believes that his countrymen are, as Yardley puts it, 'genetically inferior . . . as far as the physical demands of basketball.'

"There are the players, most of whom were sent to special government sports schools when they were children after X-rays showed they were likely to be tall, and who now live in a prisonlike dorm in an abandoned factory and practice for several hours a day, 50 weeks out of the year.

Note:
(a) Stephon Marbury
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephon_Marbury
(1977- )

(i) The English surname Marbury came from a village Marbury in Cheshire. The latter means "stronghold by the lake," from Old English mere "pool," "lake" + burh "fortified place."
(ii) Marbury, Cheshire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury,_Cheshire

(b) The review says, "But the stars of 'Brave Dragons' — if not of the Brave Dragons themselves — are the Chinese."

The first mention of Brave Dragons refers to the book, and the second, to the basketball players of that team.
(c) Mark Cuban
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Cuban(1958- ; an American business magnate; the owner of the National Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks; Jewish; last name was shortened from "Chabenisky" when his Russian grandparents landed on Ellis Island)
(d) basketball
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basketball
(invented in early December 1891, by Dr James Naismith, a physical education professor and instructor at the International Young Men's Christian Association Training School (YMCA) (today, Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts)

(i) James Naismith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Naismith
(1861-1939; born in Ontario, Canada; earned a BA in Physical Education at McGill University (1888); studied medicine in Denver, taking his MD in 1898)   
(ii) The Scottish and English surname Naismith (or spelled Nesmith) is a smith to make knife or nail, from Middle English knyf "knife" or nayl "nail + smith.

(e)
(i) Chico, California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico,_California
(ii) List of US place names of Spanish origin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis ... s_of_Spanish_origin
(Chico, California ("Small". Derived from "Rancho del Arroyo Chico," meaning "Small Stream Ranch"))