Today we talk with Ying Wushanley, a former professor at Millersville College, sports historian, and Renaissance man. Ying discusses the history of the athlete, the tradition of playing national anthems at sports events, the intent of Title Nine, and the way it has changed the layout of sports. Ying explains what it was like growing up in China, his motivations for moving to the United States, and the fight to have his brother released from China and sent to the United States. It is here in the US that he was able to build his life the way he wanted, doing things he loves.
Transcription:
Intro 00:03
Welcome to Changing the Rules, a weekly podcast about people who are living their best lives and advice on how you can achieve that too. Join us with your lively host, Ray Lowe, better known as the luckiest guy in the world.
Ray Loewe00:19
Good morning everybody, and welcome to our brand new studios in Willow Street, Pennsylvania. And we have our super engineer today, Steve Wright. And I like it when Steve is on the board, because he's a fellow swimmer, and he somehow boosts my energy level when he does this stuff. So we're gonna get a super performance, and his job is to make us sound good at the end. And I want to remind everybody that the purpose of our broadcast is we talk to one of the luckiest people in the world each week. And the luckiest people in the world are those people who take control of their lives and take control of the direction and live their lives under their own terms. And we call the show Changing the Rules. And you know, throughout our lives, we're given all of these rules by everybody else. Our parents give us rules, the school gives us rules, the government gives us rules. You know, everybody is out there telling us what we're supposed to do and what we're not supposed to do. And I think it was Steve Jobs, the Apple guy, who came in and said, you know, when you're living your life under somebody else's rules, you're not living your life, you're living somebody else's. So we have a gentleman today who certainly is one of the luckiest people in the world. And you're going to find out that the luckiest people in the world are also the most interesting people in the world. And Ying Wushanley, and what a great name. And you're gonna get the history of his name, too, as part of the process over here. And I met Ying in a swimming pool. He's a fellow competitive swimmer, he's a very, very good master swimmer. And we met him not too long ago when we were trying to qualify for next year's Senior Games. And I found out that Ying is recently retired as a full professor from Millersville College and he is embarking in the next third of his life. And he's going to be doing some exciting things, but he's done some really exciting things in the past. Ying has been an expert on the history of sports and his journey is an incredible one. Ying, welcome to Changing the Rules. Let's start with your expertise, is that alright with you?
Ying Wushanley02:46
Sure, yeah. Well, thanks for having me on the program. My expertise, I'm a trained sport historian. Most people have never heard of a historian who is focused on sports, but there are many out there.
Ray Loewe03:08
Well, let me start with a couple of specific questions. You know, one of the things that we deal with all the time in sports are the Olympics. Okay. And we had a conversation earlier and we were talking, I was under the impression that the Olympics have changed. That we went from being an amateur sport group over here to very much today professionals taking over the sports and I found out that's not true, is it?
Ying Wushanley03:37
Not in ancient time, the ancient games were the athletes were what we term as true professionals because they do their best and they will make a good living based on their athletic prowess.
Ray Loewe03:57
So the ancient Olympians were paid in fact?
Ying Wushanley04:00
Yes, paid big time. Yeah, like tons of olive oil, or free meals and they could dine everywhere. That's, that's pay. Well, they may not have gotten the currency also, but the name recognition will enable them to live a very wealthy life.
Ray Loewe04:23
And that has gone on for almost forever, right? When we started the modern Olympics, when did the modern Olympics start?
Ying Wushanley04:31
The game, the first game actually took place in 1896. But in 1894 the International Olympic Committee was formed. At the time, there was an idea of amateurs because it was supposedly based on the ancient idea of amateurs, even though in reality there wasn't such a thing. But it was based on a bunch of social elite who wanted to create this upper-class idea of amateurs. Meaning you don't play for money, you play for the love of sports.
Ray Loewe05:11
But the only way they could do that is because they were part of the wealthy elite, and they had the money to be able to train and do whatever.
Ying Wushanley05:16
Yeah, who can afford to be a very good amateur athlete if you don't have money?
Ray Loewe05:20
Okay, so now we can understand where we've gone all of these years. And today, it's very much not the amateur that rules the Olympics.
Ying Wushanley05:30
No, because the amateurs won't be good enough to compete there.
Ray Loewe05:34
Okay. So, while we're on the subject of the Olympics, I often wondered, why would any city in their right mind want to sponsor the Olympics? I mean, do they make money doing these things?
Ying Wushanley05:47
Well, it's for recognition. Politicians would like to bring attention to their corner of the world, especially say if you're from Brazil, from Australia, and how do you bring people to your corner of the world? So using Olympic Games as a major attraction, of course, certain cities have benefited financially, but many cities don't. And that is why today because the bidding is so expensive, many cities decided to quit because after all if you have more than 5 or 10 cities bid, only one will be chosen. And the preparation will cost so much money. And eventually, you're still not chosen and you've wasted a lot of money. Even the chosen ones, not too many of them make a big profit. But on the other hand, it's hard to measure because the legacy will be there, you had the honor to host the Olympic Games.
Ray Loewe06:57
So national pride comes into play. Okay, so that gets me into the next question. And again, I had the ability to talk to you about some of these. So I sound smarter, knowing the right questions than I actually am. But, let's talk about national anthems and sports and give us a little insight into the importance of national anthems. You know, we've all gone through this change and what's going on where athletes now rebel against national anthems? But there's a history here and a tradition. So, why do we play national anthems? What goes on, what's the importance of all of these things?
Ying Wushanley07:42
Well, it started as an accidental event, I think, during the 1918 World Series of baseball, and after the seventh inning stretch that the band, they played some music, including the Star Spangled Banner, which got spectators excited. And the manager or whoever the organizer was figured out for the rest of the series, we're going to start playing that music to get the fans involved. And that was the beginning of that tradition. And traditions, sometimes they're welcome, sometimes not, including many of the baseball franchise owners, they decided, you know, we're here to play sports. Why do we have to play music? You know, it makes sense at the championship to play it, make it more formal and more, respectful. But for every game to play this does not seem right. Well, you know, the baseball history as well as American sports history always goes along with the time. And oftentimes we have nations in war and patriotism plays very important role when you are in the war. And somehow we always need patriotism, patriotism would be something that the national anthem will symbolize and epitomize our national unity. So, that became a tradition first in baseball, then in other sports. But for many, many decades, it wasn't that big a deal until, I think more recently, the Persian Gulf War, the Desert Storm operation in 1991, then of course, the 911. 911 after 2001. With artists like Whitney Houston doing a rendition of the national anthem, it became so popular at the time, it was ranked in the top 20, and the second time in the top 10 of the most popular charts. So, it's very common then from an outsider's point of view, it seemed to be very strange because we can understand playing the national anthem at the Olympic Games, when you play against Italy, against France, against Japan. So, both team's national anthems will be played. But here in this country, every sporting event, even at high school level, or even, you know, little league baseball, there's always the national anthem. And oftentimes the media likes to portray it as every time we play sports, we honor the people who protect our freedom because we have the privilege to enjoy the freedom we can play sports. Some of my students say that other countries don't have this freedom, which is quite naive.
Ray Loewe11:04
Yeah. Wow. I mean, you know, you don't think about these things. And I guess this is the advantage of being able to study sports and of being a sports historian. I'm gonna want to talk quite a bit about this Title 9, because I know that you spend a lot of time writing about that. But before we do that, let's backtrack and let's talk a little bit about your journey here, which I think is an extraordinary one. So you grew up not in the United States, you grew up where?
Ying Wushanley11:35
In China, in the People's Republic of China, the mainland China. There's another China called the Republic of China, but the Chinese government, Mainland China does not recognize it. That's why there was a big fuss about Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan recently, because communists believe it's part of mainland China, even though in reality it isn't.
Ray Loewe12:04
So you grew up being raised by two women, is that correct?
Ying Wushanley12:10
That's right, mainly because my father was a high military officer, officially. And in the nationalists coming down, you know, you heard of Chiang Kai-shek, who was the head of the nationalists before 1949, when the Chinese Communist took over China, the mainland, so the nationalists fled to Taiwan, which is where they still are until today.
Ray Loewe12:42
Okay, and so your father basically was put in jail because he was on the wrong side?
Ying Wushanley12:48
Yeah, more than 32 years altogether from 1950 to 1985.
Ray Loewe12:56
Wow. Okay. And you were raised by two women, and what was the effect that they had on your life? I mean, here you are, you're very much into sports, you're very much into things that you would think Dad would do, right?
Ying Wushanley13:10
Yeah, that's right. Even though my dad was quite athletic, but my mother was much better athlete. I would say she is all an around athlete and in almost every sport, she could get her hands on. But she even flew glider in late 30s and early 40s, so at the time that Amelia Earhart was flying around the world.
Ray Loewe13:36
Okay, so you grew up, you went to college in Shanghai?
Ying Wushanley13:42
Yes, that was after the Cultural Revolution ended, from 1966 to 1976 under Mao Zedong. And there was no college in China for 10 years officially. Not the normal university. The university was running but the students were not academically selected. But Deng Xiaoping in 1977 revived higher education. So I, at the time I was working out of a state-run farm in the outskirts of Shanghai. So I had the opportunity to take the entrance exam and became the first member of a first class of university students. I was playing soccer before I went to the farm, but because of my family's political background, I could not continue.
Ray Loewe14:36
Okay. So you when you got your degree, or what did you major in Shanghai?
Ying Wushanley14:42
I majored in physical education at the Shanghai Normal University and then after graduation, I started teaching as a physical education instructor at the Shanghai Foreign Language School. It's quite a prestigious school in Shanghai, in China today, it still is. And after six and a half years teaching there I came to the United States.
Ray Loewe15:09
All right, so what motivated you? You know, how did you get here?
Ying Wushanley15:13
Mostly I was trying to escape the political persecution directly or indirectly because of my family's background. And my brother, my older brother, was at the time the leader of the pro-democracy movement in China.
Ray Loewe15:30
Okay, well, we'll catch up with your brother in a minute. Okay, so you came here, and you went to the West Coast of the United States?
Ying Wushanley15:38
Right, I was admitted by three institutions. Washington State University, Chapel Hill in North Carolina, and Purdue. But the Washington State admission came first and I grabbed it right away. I didn't care which school I was going to, I'm leaving China. That was most important for me.
Ray Loewe16:01
Okay. And you were here, now your mother, your aunt, the rest of your family is still back in China at this point in time?
Ying Wushanley16:08
Yeah. That's right.
Ray Loewe16:09
All right. So here you are, you're on the West Coast and you picked a major, and what did you choose to major in to get your Master's degree?
Ying Wushanley16:16
Masters in physical education, the focus on sport administration at the time it was called.
Ray Loewe16:22
Okay. And you were saying you had a friend there that caused you to then move to Pennsylvania?
Ying Wushanley16:28
Pennsylvania, Penn State, I was admitted as a graduate doctorate candidate.
Ray Loewe16:36
And you came here and you're still in education, still in physical education to a large extent, but you're also majoring in sports history.
Ying Wushanley16:46
Yeah, the department is Exercise and Sport Sciences. But my focus was history of sport and physical education.
Ray Loewe16:57
Okay. So now you are a doctor. Dr. Wu at the time. Were you married at the time?
Ying Wushanley17:05
No. We were married in 93 when I was still at Penn State,
Ray Loewe17:12
Okay. Now, to show everybody what a renaissance man you are here and what an equal rights person you are here, let's talk about your name and talk about your bride and talk about what happened here.
Ying Wushanley17:25
My wife's name was Geraldine Shanley, my name was Ying Wu Woo when we met and before we got married, though when we got married as well. But we became naturalized and became American citizens in 1999 and my wife in 2000. And when we did the official paperwork and we had the right to choose, to decide our name, so we chose on these names. Actually, our first daughter was born with the name we decided so we created a new name, Wushanley. Shanley is Irish and from the county Leitrim, and Wu is a more common Chinese name.
Ray Loewe18:16
Okay, so how many Wuhanley's are there now?
Ying Wushanley18:20
Four.
Ray Loewe18:20
There are four of you in the whole world.
Ying Wushanley18:22
That's right. Yeah, my wife and me and our two daughters. Yeah.
Ray Loewe18:27
Okay. Well, this will explain to a large extent why you spent so much time talking about women's sports and Title Nine and, and getting into all of that stuff because we have with us a true Renaissance man here, ladies. I mean, you're gonna want to know this guy. But talk to us a little bit about Title Nine, what it did for women and what it didn't do for women.
Ying Wushanley18:51
Okay. Well, Title Nine we should know, this year is the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title Nine of the Education Amendments of their act in 1972. So it's the 50th anniversary now. What Title Nine intended was to eliminate all kinds of the sex and discriminations in education activities where the institution received federal financial aid. So for example, Millersville University, not Millersville College anymore, receives any form of financial aid from the federal government, that law applies to Millersville. Basically, most universities and colleges in the country need to be in compliance. The intent of the Title was to change history in terms of opportunities previously and think about in your time even more that not too many women got the opportunity to go to law schools, to engineering schools, to medical schools. But nowadays, if you look at, it's almost half half, and that's the biggest intension. Now, most people think on Title Nine as related to athletics, so I will deal with athletics. Probably it wasn't even in the mind of the people who proposed that law, but it became manifested in athletics, because discrimination in terms of ability, you know, athletic sports is most reflective in terms of how one is discriminated. Well, we have separate men's and women's sports teams or competitions for good reason. Because physically or physiologically, there's a significant difference, you cannot compete together. If you put them together, then not too many women will make the men's team, at least as of now, because the ability. And that's why Title Nine affected college athletics the most. What did it do? It did a great thing to women's athletics because for example, the University of Maryland before Title Nine, the budget for athletics was like 99% went to men's and 1% went to women's if that much. Today, the budget probably is still not equal, but much closer. The program for example, at Millersville, we have probably 21 or 22 teams, and 12 - 13 - 14 are women's teams, for the reason of having equal or close to proportionally the ratio that represents the student body because Millersville is probably 53% women. So the good thing it did is it increased the opportunity for women to compete in college sports. What it did in terms of what perceived as damage to women's control of intercollegiate athletics is because before title nine women had total control of their entire women's college sports. It was separate from the men's, men's under the NCAA, women's under another organization called the AIAW Association for Women's Intercollegiate Athletics. And now, after Title Nine, the NCAA started to offer opportunities to both men and women because most institutions didn't want to have within Millersville, for example, have a separate department athletic department for men, for women have different rules. And the different rules is the problem. You can be sued for not treating your students equally. So after Title Nine, most universities will merge the departments, men's and women's, into one. And you can guess easily if those merge, who would be the athletic director most likely. Because men used to have this and just our society is still a male-dominated society, even today. But then women did not have control anymore, because, before Title Nine, they had total control, they don't have to deal with men, they will not allow men to come into coach or to be the director. Now, Title Nine says you cannot discriminate anyone. And the people often think, you cannot discriminate anyone, you cannot discriminate against a woman, you cannot discriminate against the man either.
Ray Loewe23:56
But it's changed the way sports laid out because today you see the big colleges, universities dominating women's sports. I remember days back when we had a little school right outside of Philadelphia over here that just absolutely dominated women's basketball.
Ying Wushanley24:14
Yeah, Arcadia University. Yeah, they won the first two national championships on the AIAW.
Ray Loewe24:22
So, you get some good things and you lose some good things.
Ying Wushanley24:25
Well, it depends on how you see it. The AIAW wants to have combined organization, have 50-50 share of the power. The NCAA being it's so dominant in terms of its tradition, power, and its financial resources, they wouldn't want to share. I know it's not right but it's also kind of logical and you can understand a big company merges with a small company and all of a sudden these two companies have to share exactly the resources, probably it won't happen.
Ray Loewe25:02
All right, unfortunately, we're getting near the end of our conversation here. And I want to get back to one more important thing in your life. I think what you've been able to show us to a large extent is, here you are, you're in China, a place that you want to get out to. You came to the United States, we can almost say you escaped, right? And, you built a life for yourself that's exciting, along things that were enjoyable to you and interesting. And if Ying can do this, the rest of us can do this, too. We just need to know where we want to go and what we want to do. But there's another element here that I want to make sure everybody knows about, and that's your brother. So, your brother stayed behind in China when you left? And what was he involved in and what happened to him?
Ying Wushanley25:56
Well, he was involved in the pro-democracy movement in China, started in the late 70s. And he became a leader once he got involved. So he's devoted to human rights and democracy in China. Of course, it wasn't easy. But he was detained, put into prison labor for four years from 1980 to 84. And I came to the States in 1988. At Washington State and Penn State, and then I started teaching at Ithaca College. And, you know, my mother died in 89 unfortunately. And my father was living with a relative after he was released for various circumstances. So my brother was the only one, the only person I really know, and I was concerned about his well-being. So I said, you can continue your pro-democracy movement. But I feel much more comfortable if you can come to a country where you have more freedom to do it. And so I don't have to have nightmares every night. So he agreed to come. So in the summer of 1994, just about when I was going to start at Ithaca College, he decided to come. I enrolled him in the English program for second language, foreign language at Penn State, then he hopped onto the plane, but did not arrive in JFK where the local media, or the Chinese media, was waiting for him because they knew he was coming. So he disappeared. And for 11 days, we didn't know his whereabouts. He did not hop onto the Korean airline where he was supposed to board. 11 days later, the Chinese authorities admitted they had him just for interrogation, didn't want to let him go, just because there are some unsorted issues. I started campaigning in the State College with my advisors, families, and friends, and it became an international campaign to rescue him. Eventually, the President of the United States at the time, Bill Clinton, and every senator was involved. Hundreds of representatives involved in terms of demanding, writing letters. Media like the BBC. Reuters News, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, I remember all those media interviewed us reported. I made it big just because I know what happened in China for political prisoners, they can disappear and you never find out where they went. I wanted the world to know so that he wouldn't disappear. And that seemed to have worked and I was told indirectly that I should not continue this campaign because it wasn't good for the image of China. I said, all I want is for you to release him and I will stop my campaign. And 50 days later, they sent him onto a United Flight and told him never to go back to China again. And he hasn't.
Ray Loewe29:27
And he lives now, he's on the west coast in the United States?
Ying Wushanley29:31
Oakland. Yeah.
Ray Loewe29:32
And a happy ending.
Ying Wushanley29:34
Yeah, he's okay. He still lives happily there. Well, he lived in Ithica for a while, but after the first winter, he figured that's not what he liked. Because he had meetings in San Francisco, he liked the weather they had. So he likes comfort as well.
Ray Loewe29:49
Well, you know, thank you for being with us. You know, we're over our time limit so we're going to have to end this but again, Ying Wushanley, a Renaissance man, one of the few people you'll ever meet that combines names with his wife. And thanks for sharing the history of sport with us, and I can see why you get excited about it. And we'll continue to see you in the swimming pool. And just, you know, thanks again for being here. You're obviously one of the luckiest people in the world. And thanks again. Steve, sign us off, please.
Outro 30:32
Thank you for listening to Changing the Rules. Join us next week for more conversation, our special guest, and to hear more from the luckiest guy in the world.