Soccer helps students aim for new goals

By tapping into their sporting abilities, disadvantaged young people from isolated areas are landing opportunities to attend top schools and universities. Zhang Yi reports.

Despite the bitter winter cold in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, Gao Yu and his friends practice their soccer skills every day on a snow-covered field.

The game is a passion for these rural students, and it is also a good way for them to gain places at top universities.

Gao graduated from high school last summer. His team won many soccer championships, and coaches called him the best striker among all the high school students in the province. Despite his obvious talent, though, he failed a soccer skills test in April that was supposed to send him to a leading college.

In recent years, China's promotion of soccer on campus has seen policies rolled out to give students the chance to enter high schools and universities via their sporting abilities.

Gao was aiming to study a physical training major, and the soccer test accounted for 70 percent of the total score of an exam to gain entry to a top establishment.

Growing up in the rural part of Qiqihar, a city in the province, he had a poor academic record. However, his outstanding soccer skills saw him admitted to a key senior high school in the city in 2018.

Unlike his childhood peers who started to work after leaving middle school, his dream is to go to college aided by his talent and become a sports teacher, with a strong focus on soccer.

"Soccer is my life. If I couldn't play it, I would be so sad," said the 20-year-old, whose tough, outgoing character saw him become the core of his team and a top goal scorer.

Gao is one of 10 high school graduates who failed the exam, so they are preparing to take it again this year. They were classmates in junior high school and were admitted to key high schools thanks to their soccer abilities.

They all come from villages in Qiqihar's Zhalong township, home of the Zhalong National Nature Reserve, a large-scale wetland reserve that provides a habitat for rare birds, including red-crowned cranes.

Zhalong sees relatively slow economic growth because industrial development has been banned in order to protect the wetland reserve.

Local people make a living from the reeds that grow on the wetlands. In winter, they drive onto the frozen lakes, collect the reeds, pack them, heave them onto trucks and transport them for sale to craftspeople. In summer, they travel 20 kilometers to the downtown to work.

"My parents have never seen me play soccer. They are so busy," Gao said. He added that his father didn't support his plan to take the test again because he thought it was a waste of time and wanted his son to learn practical skills, such as how to repair cars.

Cang Di, a female soccer player who has won many awards, is Gao's close friend. Her family didn't support her decision to retake the exam either after she failed the soccer skills test last year.

The 18-year-old has the best academic performance among the soccer-playing students.

Last year, her academic score was good enough for her to enroll at an ordinary university, but she chose to take the soccer test as she believed it would help her gain entry to a better establishment.

Her goal is to study at Beijing Normal University. "I want to study at a top university and continue to play soccer, so I made up my mind to spend another year preparing," she said.

Rural pursuit

Li Quan is the principal at Zhalong Central School, where the 10 students received primary and junior high education. The 41-year-old has played soccer with the students for more than a decade, and he understands their dreams better than their parents do.

In July, he persuaded the students' families to allow them to take the exam again, promising to bear all the teenagers' study and daily expenses as they prepare for the test later this year.

"It would be a waste if they didn't go to college. I don't want them or me to have regrets. They are like my own children. Until they went to high school, they played soccer with me every day. I've seen them grow taller and become better," Li said.

Li grew up in downtown Qiqihar. After graduating from university, he started teaching Chinese at Zhalong Central School in 2004.

In 2007, although still a young teacher, he was elected principal by his colleagues. In fact, no one in the city wanted the position because the school was notorious for its poor teaching conditions and low graduation rates.

At that time, 40 percent of local students graduated from the junior school, and less than 30 percent went on to senior high schools, Li said. "It was common for students to skip classes and loaf about on the streets," he added.

He attributed their lifestyles to the lack of emphasis on education in the families of left-behind children－those whose parents have moved away in search of work, leaving the children in the care of older relatives－and the dilapidated conditions on campus.

Li dragged the truants back. To keep them in school and stop them from behaving badly, he didn't make them study in the classroom－instead, he made them play soccer with him.

Even though he teaches Chinese, Li is crazy about the game, and he believes children can also become addicted to it. "If they were asked to study, they would run away in a few days," he said.

Gao said: "I got sleepy when I opened books. I hated math, especially. As soon as I arrived at school, I wanted to play soccer." His talent made him a star at school. "It felt great when we scored and everyone cheered," he said.

Liu Duo, 18, one of the 10 students who failed the exam, said: "I started playing soccer in primary school. Female students could also join in, and I was captain of the girls' team. We didn't have a soccer field. We played on dirt covered with stones. One kick of the ball could raise dust. Our clothes were covered with dust, but I was happy and I loved the sport."

Although the facilities and the soccer activities Li organized were less than ideal－chairs represented goal posts, a basketball bladder was used as a ball, and the principal learned new skills online daily and then taught them to the students－the children stayed in school.

Unexpectedly, the school's soccer team won its first city-level championship in 2012, and then won a provincial championship in 2014. Its best result was third place in a national competition, which was also a record for the province.

As it gradually became known for its soccer education, the school received support from people across the country.

Since 2015, 37 "soccer students" have been admitted to key senior high schools in the city, opening a channel for such students to continue in education.

In recent years, Li has welcomed a "harvest season" because since 2018, students who gained entry to high schools through their soccer skills have started getting into colleges by passing the soccer skills test.

In 2020, six students visited Li to show him their college acceptance letters.

Those who failed the soccer skills test last year are Li's pride and joy, though, and in primary and middle school they won championships for his school. Three years ago, 14 of them were admitted to key high schools, but only four gained entry to universities last year.

Li believes that the main reason for their failure was a number of changes to the test rules prompted by the COVID-19 epidemic, so he called them back to campus to prepare for another attempt.

The principal and most of his students are members of the Manchu ethnic group, so he named his soccer team Xongkoro after the falcon that is the group's totem animal.

"This bird flies highest and farthest in our culture. I hope my students will have the ideals and perseverance to fly to great heights," Li said.

Zhou Huiying contributed to this story.