Cangnan County launched its “Playing Basketball to Educate People — Nan哥 Basketball” education strength project on October 25, 2026, establishing six major initiatives to integrate sports and education across 198 local schools and kindergartens, Cangnan News Network reported. The opening ceremony at the county sports center basketball gymnasium brought together local officials, athletic ambassadors, and student athletes as part of a regional push to expand youth basketball development.
Six Strategic Initiatives for County Sports Education
County Deputy Party Secretary and Acting County Magistrate Meng Xiaochen declared the project open alongside officials Chen Peibiao, Su Haiou, and Zheng Xianpao. The newly unveiled six-part framework focuses on brand shaping, teacher recruitment and training, teaching reinforcement, characteristic school building, league advancement, and systemic mechanisms. Local planners aim to establish an all-student participation and multi-tier training system within one to three years, targeting a regular baseline of over 80,000 participating students annually.
To support instruction, Cangnan introduced a foundational “three ones” plan requiring every student to have a basketball, every school to utilize a basketball school-based textbook, and every schedule to include a weekly basketball activity class. The county also established a 20-member regional teacher-sharing pool to bring specialized basketball instructors, “Zhe BA” players, CUBA competitors, and retired local athletes directly into classrooms.
Zhejiang Bafei Dairy Funds Basketball School Initiatives
The initiative also distributed an initial batch of 6,000 basketballs toward a total commitment of 50,000 balls for 16 specialized basketball cultivation schools. Zhejiang Bafei Dairy Industry Company provided a 1 million yuan donation to fund the rollout of the six initiatives.
Cangnan Middle School Wins Alumni Star Game
Following the opening ceremony, Cangnan Middle School defeated Lingxi No. 1 Middle School 115-94 in an alumni star basketball game featuring returning graduates. The region's infrastructure currently includes 669 standardized basketball courts, providing coverage across all township-level primary and secondary schools.
Cangnan Invests 10 Million Yuan in Talent Cultivation
Cangnan has earmarked 10 million yuan in dedicated funding for talent cultivation and to establish dual academic-athletic records for specialized sports students. The county’s competition framework encompasses class-level, zone-level, and county-level tournaments, headlined by a “hundred schools, thousand games” league that generated over 1,000 campus matches. Organizers plan to integrate regional youth invitationals spanning southern Zhejiang and northern Fujian to sharpen competitive pathways for the county’s 230 registered youth players spread across U10, U12, and U15 selection tiers.
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