Jeremy Lin’s dominance of the NBA turned out to be brief. But athletes don’t need to play for huge teams to prove their worth

I’ll always remember 14 February 2012, partly because it was my birthday but also because America was in the grip of Linsanity, a dazzling two-week period during which Jeremy Lin was one of the world’s best basketball players. That day, Lin hoisted up a three-pointer with time winding down against the Toronto Raptors.

Yes, that game.

The shot went in and, as Lin celebrated wildly with his teammates, I was enthralled. Players who looked like me weren’t supposed to be on NBA courts, let alone dominate them. For tens of thousands of kids like me around America, Lin’s emergence meant something.

Injuries and an inevitable loss of form – even LeBron James would have struggled to maintain Lin’s level of play over those two weeks – means Linsanity feels like a distant memory. But it raises a question: will an Asian American superstar ever grace the spotlight in one of North America’s major sports league like Lin did? And perhaps this time for more than two weeks? The answer feels as complicated as the definition of “Asian American,” which varies from person-to-person, region-to-region.

It’s important to understand the uniqueness of Lin’s rise to stardom. Based on the Linsanity coverage, it’s easy to see how befuddled the media and general public were about him – Asian American players are rare in North America’s four biggest leagues, the NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL. Insensitive Asian jokes became as commonplace as Lin’s heroics on the court, and it was easy to see how unprepared the US was for an Asian American superstar.

Though that shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise. Historically speaking, there have been so few Asian Americans within the Big Four that often their mere presence is news. Of course, there’s also the distinction between an Asian American player and an Asian player. Yao Ming, for example, was an NBA icon, but he is Chinese, not American.

In answering where all the Asian Americans are, though, it gets tricky. The NCAA has a database to track the demographics of student-athletes in the US (it’s worth noting that the NCAA differentiates Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders from the Asian American category). The statistics are telling:

· In baseball, of a total 34,980 student-athletes, 318 of them were Asian. About 0.9% of student-athletes.

· In football, of a total 73,057 student-athletes, 386 of them were Asian. About 0.53% of student-athletes.

· In basketball, of a total 18,712 student-athletes, 107 of them were Asian. About 0.57% of student-athletes.

· In hockey, of a total 4,197 student-athletes, 28 of them were Asian. About 0.67% of student-athletes.

Compare the data to the Asian American population of the United States. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2017, Asian people made up about 5.8% of the US population. It should be noted, though, it’s hard to differentiate Asian from Asian American in the data.

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Looking at the raw data, especially among the Big Four sports at the collegiate level, Asian Americans are vastly underrepresented. And since, in football and basketball at least, college is the gateway to professional sports it’s easy to see why we’re still waiting for the next Lin.

A number of factors need to be considered as to why Asian Americans aren’t playing in these popular sports. Some will point to the cultural differences they often deal with — especially looking at education and a propensity for hard work. As a second-generation Asian American, education was of the utmost importance at home and that was pounded into me. Sports took a backseat most of the time.

Stereotyping is a real problem too; it reminds me of when I played pick-up hoops at high school. Teenagers are ruthless and I’d hear far too often the dismal “small eyes” and “chopstick” jokes — which, in a basketball setting, make no sense anyway. It hardly encourages a young athlete to carry on playing – especially when some honestly believe Asian Americans just aren’t as athletic as other groups.

Of course, away from the big pro sports leagues Asian Americans have had success. Chloe Kim was one of the stars of the 2018 Winter Olympics. She has charisma as well as skill and it was little surprise to see her gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated. The new US Open champion, Naomi Osaka, is a more fluid case. Her mother and father are Japanese and Haitian respectively but she grew up in America. With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics right around the corner, the spotlight will soon fall on her, and she will receive far more attention than she did after her US Open win, which was sadly overshadowed by controversy around Serena Williams’s clash with an umpire.

And perhaps the examples of Kim, Osaka and male athletes like the uber-talented Nathan Chen show that success in the NFL or NBA isn’t everything. “Asian American” is an all-encompassing term and should be treated as such. An Asian American athlete doesn’t necessarily have to be a clone of Lin — East Asian, male and playing for a huge pro sports team — to be a star.