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.