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University of Maryland basketball player Choi Jin-Soo is doing what many college basketball players have done previously and that is leave school to go professional. Choi Jin-Soo is entering the NBA…. uh, no. Correction: He’s leaving an NCAA Division 1 basketball program from one of the elite conferences (ACC) to play in the ultra-competitive professional league of the Korean Basketball League (KBL). That’s just a notch above the Korean church summer leagues that do fund raisers. He cited the difficulties of studying and playing basketball. I don’t know what his major was but he could’ve chosen what many solid student-athletes excel in and that’s the ever popular “communications” major.
“It is really hard to do both ― play basketball and study,” Choi told Korean basketball magazine Jump Ball.
“Studying causes me a lot of stress. I only want to play basketball, I don’t want to have to think about studying,” added Choi.
Good luck Choi Jin-Soo. You’ll be missed at Maryland. You could have been the second Korean person to play in the NBA.
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January 6th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
the first korean in the nba was actually Ha Seung-Jin.
January 7th, 2010 at 11:17 am
The Washington Post wrote that the problem was, and this is unfortunately too common for Koreans at American universities, Choi was not proficient enough in English to perform in the classroom. I don’t think the problem was really about balancing schoolwork and sports as it was more about a struggle with language (which can also affect teamwork in a sport). The Korean Herald’s article about the English-deficiency problem among Korean university students in America only emphasized students at elite universities, such as those in the top-20. I believe the problem extends beyond top-20 schools because the English preparation that the majority of Korean students receive in Korea is insufficient. While I am sure there are exceptions, all students in Korea, both studious and lazy, are subjected to similar instruction in English, but English is taught as simply another subject to be tested on. Emphasis is placed on passing the TOEFL, which is, quite frankly, very easy. Korea though is not the exception. Anyone who went to school in America and had to take French, Spanish, German, or any foreign language can tell you that they have no conversational skills too. The difference, however, is that students in America learn a foreign language for maybe four years (usually during high school), and they are not going abroad in large numbers to countries that speak/instruct in a foreign language. Koreans not only begin English instruction from early elementary through high school and maybe even at university, Korean students are one of the largest, if not THE largest, minority at American universities. Koreans learn English probably at least three times longer than an average American students learns another foreign language, yet their conversational skills do not reflect the time period it has been studied for. While grammar is important, so is phonetics and understanding colloquial speech. I also have a bone to pick with the use of English (as a gimmick) in Korean pop culture, but that conversation is for another time.
Hopefully for Choi, the transition back to Korea will not be difficult. The deadline for entering the KBL has passed, so if he does not enter, maybe he can enter into a university for the time being.