Peng Lijun: Changsha’s Grassroots Basketball Innovator

Editor’s note

The history of competitive sports is written by champions, and people are always looking forward to the next talented superstar.

Discovering talents requires a lot of screening. The difficult problem facing sports people is: to increase the influence of the project, expand participation, and fully select talents; at the same time, even if the project participants do not embark on the road to the top, they can still learn something and accumulate resources for their future lives; only by working together can the hot land rich in talents be ripened. And this path is the integration of sports and education.

The integration of sports and education in Changsha has been practiced for many years. The transportation of reserve talents and the construction of campus youth training have gone hand in hand and achieved fruitful results. From now on, the New Hunan Football Association and the Changsha Municipal Sports Bureau will launch a series of reports on the “Style of Changsha Grassroots Coaches”, telling the wonderful lives of ten front-line coaches who strive to integrate sports and education.

Hunan Daily·New Hunan Client Reporter Xiao Xiao

introduction

In 1996, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of Yale-China Middle School, the Yale-China Association of America came to inspect the school. Americans are very keen on playing basketball, so they proposed to compete with the Yali Women’s Basketball Team. Peng Lijun, the head coach of the women’s basketball team who was training at Helong Gymnasium, received the notice and quickly ran back to school with her “children”. On Yali’s concrete court, facing foreigners who were tall and mighty and could dunk, the Yali girls dared to fight and refused to admit defeat, leaving a deep impression on the American visitors.

In 2025, Deng Yuting, brought out by Peng Lijun, entered the North American NCAA, setting a record for the highest score among Chinese players in the NCAA D1 level competition, and receiving admission invitations from more than fifty famous American basketball schools.

From the Americans’ inspection of Yali to the Yali people’s conquest of the United States, for Peng Lijun, this was an echo that spanned 30 years.

1. Not only must you play well, but you must also receive a good education.

The story of Peng Lijun and Yali Women’s Basketball Team began in 1990. At that time, in order to solve the “study-training contradiction” of promising sports talents giving up training due to their studies, Changsha City’s sports and education departments decided to work together to create a new model of integrating sports and education. Peng Lijun was assigned by the Municipal Sports Commission to Yali Middle School as a basketball coach. She shoulders the task of providing basketball reserve talents, and at the same time, she also has to find a new way to integrate sports and education.

Physical training is about educating people, and cultural studies are also about educating people. They are all for children to achieve themselves. The difficult thing is to balance the two. Peng Lijun gradually figured out the direction of solving the problem – the core is to sharpen the will, and the method is to teach students in accordance with their aptitude.

“In campus basketball, children must not only play well, but also receive a good education.” Peng Lijun said. Paying attention to style, studying diligently, and training closely are Peng Lijun’s leadership philosophy. In her view, it is always “being a person first, learning second, and playing basketball third.”

According to Yali’s training schedule, the women’s basketball team members study normally like other students, and mainly use the time between get out of class in the afternoon and before self-study in the evening to participate in training. Peng Lijun said: “This way I can squeeze out a lot of time for training, and there won’t be too many things missing from the course.”

When she went to play games in other places, Peng Lijun applied for a “support team” with the school, and Chinese, mathematics, and English teachers took turns to accompany the team. “Once after playing a game the day before, the players were called up to attend class at 8 a.m. the next day, and they went to class at 10 a.m. before catching the noon train.”

Over the years, the scene of Yali women’s basketball team winning the championship and doing questions on the sidelines has become a sight. If a team member’s class is delayed too much, Peng Lijun will take the initiative to help the child coordinate with the teacher to make up for the class.

“It’s hard to play well in campus basketball if your grades don’t keep up.” Peng Lijun set a rule: if her grades don’t meet the standards, training will be suspended immediately. Before every important exam, Peng Lijun assigns tasks to the teaching assistant Wang Yajie. She is responsible for organizing and printing the study materials and handing them to the team members, and supervising everyone to review the knowledge points every day.

In the Yali Women’s Basketball Team, not only does no one learn to be lazy, but it creates an atmosphere of chasing each other. In 2014, Li Xuan, who was awarded the only basketball recommendation spot for Peking University in the country, said: “If you study well in culture, you will also play basketball well. They all promote each other.”

2. As a coach, you have to be good to your children.

Peng Lijun expressed her principles of integrating herself with Yali Sports: “To cultivate an excellent athlete, it is not only about professional skills, but also self-cultivation and improvement of knowledge level. This requires our words and deeds.”

Off the court, Peng Lijun often talks to the players and “different methods should be adopted for different children.” For relatively introverted children, Peng Lijun’s approach is to encourage them more and give them confidence. When necessary, Peng Lijun will also show her strict side.

What Peng Lijun worries most about are the children from other places who have left their hometowns to go to school in Changsha. In 2008, Wang Xuemeng, a girl from Xinjiang, traveled 3,700 kilometers from her hometown of Korla to join the Yali Women’s Basketball Team. “Teacher Peng treated us like her own daughters. She stayed with us longer than raising her daughter.” Wang Xuemeng, who later became a national player in the women’s basketball team, recalled this.

Audiences who have watched the Yali women’s basketball game must be deeply impressed by Peng Lijun’s hoarse shouting and active running on the spot. Wang Yajie recalled that if a player was maliciously fouled, “Teacher Peng would rush up and roar immediately,” and then repeatedly communicate with the opponent’s coach and the scorer’s table, “You can fight on the court, but you can’t destroy the children!”

Korean audiences were lucky enough to witness Peng Lijun’s conducting style. On August 27, 2018, Yeosu, South Korea, the women’s basketball final of the 26th China-Japan-Korea Youth Games. Before the game started, the five-person coaching staff of the defending champion Japanese team got into the mood early and loudly cheered the team. On the side of the Chinese U17 team, led by the Yali Women’s Basketball Team, the atmosphere was a little tense. In order to prevent the young players from being overwhelmed by the opponent’s momentum, Peng Lijun rushed to the center line of the court and shouted at the top of her voice in Mandarin with a strong Hunan accent to boost the confidence and morale of the players. In the end, the Chinese team narrowly defeated its opponent by 1 point and won the championship.

“At that time, all our team members jumped up and were so excited. To be honest, the sense of honor was really unforgettable!” Speaking of the experience of winning the championship, Peng Lijun still has fresh memories.

3. Spiritual education is a more important reward than medals

In 2018, he won the championship at the China-Japan-Korea Youth Games; in 2021, he won the historic first National Games silver medal for Hunan’s “three major goals”; in the 22-23 season, he won the Naigao National Finals; in 2023, he won the East Asian Youth Games championship; in 2024, he won the World Middle School Basketball Championship trophy…

The record of Yali Women’s Basketball Team is dazzling, but Peng Lijun knows that this team has wiped away the tears of defeat countless times and stood up again after setbacks. Unlike professional clubs that slowly build their lineups around stars, middle school teams have frequent turnovers between old and new players. Maybe the coach has just taught a student how to play, and she is about to graduate.

Peng Lijun said that what she cultivates is not only the present of the children, but also the future. She shared a story: In 2015, Yali Women’s Basketball Team met the traditional strong team Shijiazhuang No. 2 Middle School in the semi-finals of Naigao. During the game, Yali Women’s Basketball Team fell behind for a long time. Starting from the third quarter, Yali Women’s Basketball Team used a full-court pressing tactic that was rare in middle school students’ games, and the score was only one point away. At the last moment of the game, Yali guard Zhang Yi stole the ball and played a fast break, broke all the way to the basket, and then sent a pass from behind. The center got the ball and made a layup. Unfortunately, this fast break was called for a walk and the score was invalid. In the end, Yali lost by one point.

Talking about the game ten years ago, Peng Lijun still vividly remembered, “As soon as the game ended, the children were stuck on the ground crying, feeling wronged, but the results of the game have come out, and you have to teach the children how to face it.” That night, Peng Lijun organized a team meeting. She said, “An excellent athlete must know how to win, but also learn to accept losing,” and then asked the team members to write summaries. At 1 o’clock in the morning, the captain was the first to finish writing: “Losing is not terrible, but the terrible thing is not being able to stand up.” “Our seniors may not be able to win championships for Yali, but we can make our junior brothers and sisters better.” Peng Lijun said: “This is the resilience that basketball teaches them. The experience of losing is also your wealth. It may be a more important gain than medals.”

Sports brings spiritual education to people through physical training. Peng Lijun said that campus basketball is fundamentally about cultivating talents, not just basketball talents, but also allowing them to become better through the integration of physical education. No matter what job they are engaged in in the future, they will have a good body and attitude, and become a strong and mature person.

4. The integration of sports and education is the integration of children’s life

In April this year, the women’s basketball national team training roster was announced. Chen Yujie, Deng Yuting, and Liu Bei, who were trained by Peng Lijun, were selected at the same time, which became a legend. Since 2017, more than 20 members of the Yali Women’s Basketball Team have been selected for various levels of youth teams in the Chinese Women’s Basketball Team.

In addition to national-level teams, the number of players who have gone from Yali Women’s Basketball Team to professional teams, university teams, and professional teams is too numerous to count.

In 2023, the Huazhong University of Science and Technology women’s basketball team won the CUBAL championship. Among the 12-person roster of this team, there are as many as 10 players from Yali. Zhang Boya, the MVP of the Naigao League that year, is about to join Huake with teammates Wang Shuxin and Hao Helena. Some fans commented, “It seems that Huake has won the championship, but in fact Yali is the biggest winner.” In March this year, Huake won the championship in the 7th Asian University Three-on-Three Basketball Championship with a complete victory record. The four players on the team are also Yali’s “disciples and sisters.”

Peng Lijun may not be able to remember how many championships she has won, but when it comes to the children’s personalities and technical and tactical styles, they are a treasure trove:

“Wang Xuemeng is like me. She has strong self-esteem and refuses to admit defeat. She learns quickly whatever I teach her.”

“Deng Yuting is very talented and has long hands and feet. I could tell at first sight that she was a good prospect.”

“Zhai Huan is the hardest working one. He has strong personal ability and is capable of three-pointers and breakthroughs.”

“Liu Bei has a good sense of fighting, especially on offensive rebounds. He is very aggressive.”

From the “older generation” Qiu Siyue, Tang Yu, and Gong Fangzhu to newcomers Xu Ziqi, Hu Ruiyan, Liu Rui, Li Yuqian, and Wu Zhuoxin. Each generation of children brought up by Peng Lijun inspires and catches up with the next generation.

In addition to realizing themselves on the court, many players choose to shine behind the scenes like Peng Lijun. The head coach of Mingde Huaxing Middle School, which won the National Junior High School Basketball League Championship in 2022, is Yu Hongjun, who is also a disciple of Peng Lijun. Yu Hongjun said: “Teacher Peng not only teaches tactics on the court, but also the attitude towards difficulties and challenges. This is what I want to teach the players now.” To her, Peng Lijun is more like a family member.

In the final analysis, the integration of sports and education is the integration of children’s lives. In Peng Lijun’s view, physical education is not just about playing basketball for a few years in middle school, but also about teaching children to use their brains. “I take care of many children, and I will summarize each batch of different types of children.”

Conclusion:

Nowadays, in addition to coaching training, “Little Sister Peng”, who has passed her 60th year, also insists on playing two games a week. Although she has passed the retirement age, she is still as young as a child. “Basketball keeps me full of energy.” This love not only changed herself, but also lit up the future of countless children. And the story of her and her children continues to be written…

Author: Xiao Xiao

Editor: Li Yumei

First instance: Li Youmei

Second Instance: Wang Han

Third trial: Liu Yongtao

Source: Hunan Daily·New Hunan Client