March 9, 2000
Coach Xu, the former Chinese national women’s and University of Tennessee coach based at the Ross School, was persuaded recently by the RECenter’s interim director, Richard Cooney Sr., to take over the popular masters swimming program after the former coach left because of a pay dispute.
During a conversation this week, Coach Xu said he decided to fit the coaching job into his busy schedule when he saw how serious the 40 adult swimmers were. . . . “Swimming is the best exercise for health. There is nothing better. You never get an injury, there is no age limiting, it’s the best aerobic exercise, and it’s the best body position for circulation. You exercise all your muscles, it’s good for your central nervous system. Your whole body becomes very balanced.”
A native of Shanghai, as is his wife, Wei Chi, a top-notch martial arts coach, Coach Xu said he learned how to swim as a youngster at the mouth of the Yangtze River. At 12, he started to compete, and in 1964 and ’65 the now 54-year-old was a national junior champion. Before coming to the University of Tennessee in 1989, he coached the Chinese national women’s team and a masters (over-25) team in Shanghai that won national championships.
. . . “A lot of people need a coach,” Coach Xu said. “Maybe they can swim but their technique is not good. It is true of children and adults, even though there are many pools here. We need more indoor pools.”
He would coach children too, if he were asked, he said. “This area has a very good potential to develop a swimming program. It would be very good for everyone’s life and health.”
March 16, 2000
Ordinarily, it takes about three and a half hours to get from here to Poughkeepsie, but, because of an ill-oriented bus driver, it took the Bridgehampton High School boys basketball team, the Killer Bees, five and a half hours to get to Marist College for their Class D Southeast regional clash with Alexander Hamilton Friday — arriving about 40 minutes before game time and after the spectator bus had pulled in.
Not that that was the reason why the Bees lost 49-39 to the White Plains-area Red Raiders that night, but clearly the tortuous ride, during which the Huntington-based bus crossed and recrossed the Hudson River and tooled up Route 9 in the rush hour, was not a good omen.
. . . Asked if it was a long ride home, Carl Johnson, the Bees’ coach, said, “Not at all. Going home, the driver made no wrong turns. We were back here by about 12:15.”
. . . Daryl Fishburne, Mikey Turner, and Ray Gilliam, all three of them guards, will be back next year. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Johnson will have no height. . . . Asked if he thought someone might transfer in, the coach said, “I’ll take any transfer who’s 6 feet!”
