2022/ Original 4th
Author:Yang Lei
Today, after reading an interview with Fan Zhendong's head coach and former world champion Wang Hao after winning the World Table Tennis Championships in Houston.
In the interview, Wang Hao talked about the bits and pieces that accompanied Fan Zhendong's growth, his feelings after becoming a coach, his debt to his family and his unrepentant attachment to table tennis.
This "new", without you deliberately feeling, is simply overwhelming, embodied in the words and lines, reflected in the way of thinking about problems, reflected in the perception of people and things, embodied in the huge change in speech and behavior...
In the process of listening, my thoughts unconsciously came out of the circle, making me wonder whether the "young man" in front of me who was as calm as water and the golden sentences were still the Wang Hao who 'didn't want to think about anything after practicing well'?
After thinking about it for half a moment, I explained to myself that perhaps the best "coach" in the world is not a specific person, but a silent year and a heavy responsibility on his shoulders.
Years make people calm; responsibility, urge people to mature.
01 The youth memories of an entire generation
Wang Hao is the youth memory of an entire generation, and for me, I am particularly impressed.
Wang Hao's career almost completely coincides with my youth, in my mind, Wang Hao will always be the appearance of the 2003 Doha World Table Tennis Team Championships and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, forever young and unwilling.
Unfortunately, time is hurried, moving forward, blinking kung fu, eighteen or nine years of time, whizzing, passed, 14 years after Wang Hao retired, it has been seven or eight years.
Years promote growth. Perhaps, everyone will mature, just in a different way, sooner or later.
- The small team members who could not wake up from the morning run were now used to waiting in the playground ten minutes in advance;
- The teenager who picked the pick when he didn't let him play in the final now understands the true meaning of the team's inheritance;
- The obedient man who said that he belonged to the pig coach arranged what to practice, and now he also knows that he must always sound the alarm bell;
- The technical man who originally thought that he was alone in the world to crush his opponents would now lose sleep because of the preparation of the team members.
Responsibility matures. From a "hand-throwing treasurer" who didn't want to play a good game at all, to the "father coach" who now has everything in mind, the transformation of roles and the drive of responsibility have made Wang Hao quickly mature.
This maturity, between words and lines, can be heard by the ear, can be felt by the heart, and can be understood.
The opening statement is too long, back to the truth, let's listen to Wang Hao together, listen to his seven or eight years after retiring from the country.
02 Father coach, champion inheritance
"I watched him grow up, first as a teammate and then as a coach in charge. Along the way, I've been watching him grow. Wang Hao described the relationship between the two to the surging news reporter.
The first encounter between the two came from Fan Zhendong, who had just been on the Bayi team for a year before the 2009 National Games, and took on the task of sparring at the National Games. Wang Hao didn't talk much at that time, and when he came up, he practiced, which made Fan Zhendong very nervous, and picking up the ball was running forward.
"I remember it very clearly, because I was relatively fat at the time, and the first thing Hao Ge said to me was: Practice your physical fitness more!" In an interview with "Table Tennis World", Fan Zhendong can still recall the scene of the first meeting. At that time, Fan Zhendong did not expect that the world champion would become his coach.
Interestingly, Wang Hao once described the relationship between the two as father and son, "Xiao Fat and I, just like me and Liu Guoliang, have brotherly feelings, and master-apprentice feelings, and a bit like father and son." ”
But now, Wang Hao prefers to use another word to describe: "I think this is more of a inheritance, and it is with this inheritance that the national table tennis can cultivate more players from generation to generation."
Everyone has a father, the head coach is the "second father" of professional athletes, the "second father's face" is difficult to see most of the time, when we were young we thought it was "unkind", and when we grew up, we knew its other name, called "love".
03 Get up difficult teenager transforms into Devil Coach
Even now that you are the champion of the World Table Tennis Championships, Wang Hao still requires Fan Zhendong to go out every morning to exercise, and he also does not fall behind, "It doesn't matter how late you slept last night, the next morning when I knock on the door, I must get up." He went downstairs at half past six, I was earlier than him, and I was waiting for him downstairs at six twenty," Wang Hao said lightly.
In Wang Hao's eyes, these were all honing Fan Zhendong's will qualities, but when asked if he was tempering himself, he said lightly: "Fortunately, I am used to all this." ”
At this moment, Wang Hao is like an old father who "always puts his children's hard work on his lips", but often ignores that he is also doing the same thing.
Thinking back to that year, it may have been woken up by the coach and unwilling to leave the warm bed, it is the "Wang Hao" who is now standing outside the door, knocking on the door on time, and waiting in advance, time and space conversion, role exchange, and responsibility have made the pain of that year into today's self-discipline.
04 Keep the group gall, add more lonely courage
When Wang Hao returned to the national team in 2017 as the first team coach of the national table tennis men's team, he faced more unknowns.
"After a long time, I slowly feel that coaching ability needs time, and you have to constantly communicate with athletes, keep groping, keep summarizing, and think in a down-to-earth way." Wang Hao looked back at that time and always felt that he was "less practical."
But this kind of "steadfastness" is more like an exploration without an end - such as how to relieve the pressure of the team members before the race, how to prepare several solutions for the race, what unexpected situations will occur in the race... These are all open questions, where are the standard answers?
For these, Wang Hao as a player has experienced hundreds of battles; but as a coach, he is more like a "recruit".
Even in the seventh year of becoming a coach, Wang Hao still does not have the feeling of being familiar with the so-called light car. Before the Tokyo Olympics, he lost sleep for a week, not completely unable to sleep, but his mind was always thinking about all kinds of things about the Olympic Games.
In his view, coaching is a profession that always needs a sense of crisis, "only if you always have a sense of crisis, you will continue to innovate or think of some new problems."
This kind of thinking, perhaps only those who have experienced it can personally appreciate the depth of it, the entanglement of not being able to sleep at night, not fragrant, like always hanging a sword of Damocles above his head, invisible but always torturing the people in it, no one can help himself, like an "ant that is roasted in a hot pot".
However, I think that Wang Hao is no longer afraid of "being an ant on a hot pot".
Because
- If there is no courage and boldness of "being an ant on the hot pot", Wang Hao will not choose to return to the national team;
- If there is no "being an ant on an overheated pot", if he has not undertaken the burden of "using me in the first battle, using me to win", Wang Hao will not be anxious and insomnia before the Tokyo Olympics, tossing and turning;
Identify the goal and do not relax, summon up enough energy to chase the dream, withstand the high temperature and roasting, and withstand the pressure of all parties, this is the "Wang Hao" who is now standing behind Fan Zhendong.
Wang Hao in the coaching era has maintained the "group guts" of the player era, and dares to face the problems head-on, adding a "lonely guts".
05 Where there are good years, but someone carries the weight for you
For the life of the national table tennis coach, Wang Hao used the four words of "abandoning the family and giving up the business" to describe.
"In the past, I used to joke with my lover, she said that when she was an athlete, she went out to play every day, and I teased her that when I became a coach, it was basically up to me." But the gap between ideal and reality is more than a star and a half apart in Wang Hao's place.
"When you're a coach, you almost live in the team, you train in closed doors, and you have to go out and play. Because there are also many athletes with the belt, more consideration should be given to all aspects. ”
A Weibo post by Wang Hao's wife Yan Boya in 2019 wrote: "In order to take a photo with his father, Luo Di spent from one hundred days to one year old, from one year old to two years old, and finally arranged." Wang Hao's reply was: "Finally, I don't have to give myself to P."
Wang Hao calculated that the time he can stay at home in a year is only two months, "As an ordinary family, many people may feel that this is not normal." But as a coach, there is no way, but who lets themselves be in this business all the time?"
"The coach has a lot of work, and it is the recognition of the players because the players are chasing you to practice. Although this is stressful, I am happy overall."
When Fan Zhendong was facing a career trough, all kinds of cynicism were overwhelming, and too many people accused Wang Hao, "the second oldest of the millennium can never teach the champion", "he is not counted in his big manya, and he took a round with a small fat", and so on, and so on.
Just like Qin Zhijian behind the "Double Circle Grand Slam" and "Hexagonal Warrior" Ma Long, after he became famous and famous all over the world, people suddenly found that the young Qin Guide had quietly turned silver.
99% of people only see the results, and less than 1% see the effort behind the "success or failure", the effort of throwing away the family for decades.
Perhaps, not every effort has results, just like our life, but please do not wrongfully and belittle every "sincere wish we are good" of the true heart, just like Wang Hao to Fan Zhendong.
06 Written in the last words
After watching the whole interview, I flashed a thought in my mind countless times: "If Wang Hao in the athlete period has reached half the maturity of his mind now, maybe his career will be much less regretful"! Unfortunately, life cannot be reversed, and time cannot be turned back.
God is such an arrangement, when your body is full of vitality, you do not know that youth is precious and has a future, and you do not know how to cherish; when you are dying of old age, the world is clear and enlightened, and you realize that the most precious time in your life has slipped away from your hands, and it is too late to regret it.
Someone once said a sentence with the spirit of A Q: "A life without regrets is itself the biggest regret"! "Regret" in the final analysis, or a kind of lack, just like Wang Hao has rubbed shoulders with the Olympic men's singles three times, and no matter how chicken blood rhetoric can not hide the missed cone pain.
"No regrets, just an ideal; less regrets, is the truth"!
How to minimize regrets in life?
Wang Hao's interview gave us a train of thought, that is: take the years as the end, take the responsibility as the road, be down-to-earth, look up at the stars, love what I love, no complaints and no regrets, the rest, time will give us the answer!