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Memorandum Memorandum Date: February 20, 2003 From: Kim Chew, Sr. Vice President Montri Chew, Chief Financial Officer Bebe Lee, Vice President K & D Graphics Orange County Badminton Club 1432 N. Main Street, Orange, CA 92867 To: USA Badminton members & United States Olympic Committee Subjects: 1. The Chew Family’s side of the story on the Jinadasa Family controversy 2. The Chew Family’s decision to withdraw USA Badminton sponsorships The Chew Family & Badminton The Chew Family – Don Chew, his wife Kim Chew, his daughter Bebe Lee, and his sons Montri Chew and Gus Chew – own and operate K & D Graphics, a commercial printing company located in Orange, California that sold over $8.3 million in 2002. Don Chew and Kim Chew are well recognized for their business and personal accomplishments: 1996 Small Business Person of the Year Finalist - Southern California Region – Small Business Administration 1999 International Associate Member of the Year – International Publishing Management Association 2000 Family Owned Business Award - Small Business Category – California State University Fullerton Family Business Council & Orange County Business Journal 2001 Ethics in America Award – Passkeys Foundation – Jefferson Center for Character Education & Orange Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Bureau Don Chew loves the sport of badminton ever since he was young. He has excellent knowledge of badminton since he was immersed in intense competitions in Thailand for many years. Don was on a team that won the King of Thailand Cup. One of his teammates and long time friend went on to be ranked #2 in the world. After moving to the United States from Thailand and becoming successful in the printing business, Don decided to get involved in improving the sport of badminton in the US as a way of contributing to this wonderful country that has given his family so many opportunities. The sport of badminton was relatively popular in the United States back in the first half of the 20th Century, but has since declined to the point where most of the American Public considers it to be a “backyard game”. However, badminton is quite popular in the world and became a Summer Olympic medal sport in 1992. The sport is governed internationally by the International Badminton Federation, which operates under the International Olympic Committee. In the US, the USOC recognizes and supports USA Badminton as the National Governing Body for the sport of badminton. In 1996, Don Chew convinced his family to spend over $3 million to build the Orange County Badminton Club (OCBC). The state-of-the-art badminton-only facility offers world-class training amenities to US athletes. OCBC hired international-caliber coaches to train US athletes including former Thailand National Head Coach Cai Zi Min, 2000 Olympic men’s doubles gold medallist Tony Gunawan, 1996 Olympic men’s doubles silver medallist Rudy Gunawan, and former Chinese National Team member Cindy Shi. USA Badminton Involvements Don became involved with USA Badminton (USAB) and has been on its Board of Directors (BOD) for six years and has been USAB President for the last three years. His son Gus is also serving on the USAB BOD. Don is proud of his effort to try to operate USA Badminton like a good business that serve its customers – the USAB members, practices good financial accountability and proper business planning to satisfy its investors – the USOC and sponsors, and improves on its valuable assets - the athletes. Don has worked hard to make sure that USAB operates according to its Bylaws, not some person’s whims. All decisions are made or approved by the USAB BOD. USAB’s finances are regularly audited by the USOC Audit Department. Don’s goal is for USAB to be able to produce US athletes who actually have a chance at winning Olympic medals; not just to qualify, lose in the first round, and claim that they are Olympians. He told us that this goal is realistically achievable by 2012 if our family worked with USAB and if USOC can increase its support for USAB. During Don Chew’s tenure as USAB President, the US has risen from second place in the Pan Am zone competition to being undefeated with victories at the 2001 Pan Am Championships team gold medal, the 2001 Pan Am Championships individual gold medals in three events, the 2001 Thomas Cup (Men’s World Championships) Regional Championships team gold medal, the 2001 Uber Cup (Women’s World Championships) Regional Championships team gold medal, the 2002 Pan Am Junior team gold medal, and fifteen 2002 Pan Am Junior individual gold medals out of twenty-five age-specific events. In the international arena, the US men’s doubles team of Kevin Han/Howard Bach became the first US players to break into the top-10 IBF world rankings. A second US men’s doubles team of Tony Gunawan/Khankham Malaythong should break into the top-10 IBF world rankings within the next few weeks. The US now have Eric Go, Mike Chansawangpuvana, May Mangkalakiri, Elie Wu, and Eti Tantra who are ranked in the top-80 IBF world rankings in all five badminton disciplines. The US has also advanced to its highest level of competition in the 2003 Sudirman Cup (Mixed World Championships) – Group 3 pool out of 7 groups total. Don’s international effort has resulted in greater recognition and cooperation between USAB and IBF. IBF President Korn Dabbaransi has visited OCBC on several occasions and has told the US athletes in training that they should take full advantage of their access to one of the best badminton facilities in the world. The Chew Family’s Sponsorship of USA Badminton Don Chew has assisted the US athletes in these accomplishments by providing them with support and guidance through OCBC, which is currently designated by USAB as a National Training Center (NTC). One coach paid by USAB trains six NTC Elite athletes. Four coaches paid by OCBC assist with the NTC program and also train 19 OCBC-sponsored development athletes. OCBC is also training more than 50 junior athletes between the ages of 4-14 to feed into the future USAB athlete pool. Don is so fair about allocating the coaching resources that the OCBC coaches hardly have any time to train Don’s own grandson, Phillip Chew, who is a past Junior National triple-crowns winners. Phillip’s father Gus has to personally coach Phillip. Since USAB does not actually have much funding available to support the NTC training program and the traveling expenses necessary to get our to US athletes to international tournaments to earn IBF world ranking points, Don Chew has personally sponsored all expenses for the US men’s doubles team of Tony Gunawan/Bob Malaythong, the US mixed doubles team of Tony Gunawan/Eti Tantra, and numerous other athletes. Don has personally sponsored travel support for many of the top US athletes since 1996 and have even offered to reimburse the top US athletes for their Olympic qualifying personal expenses should they make the 2004 US Olympic team. Recently, Don sponsored 9 US athletes to compete at the 2003 Thailand Open this past January and will fund additional US athletes to three more international tournaments within the next two months. Don is also trying to promote the US regional tournaments by privately financing the entire USAB Elite NTC team and OCBC team to five USAB national ranking tournaments. These travel sponsorships already cost the Chew Family well over $30,000 in 2003. K & D Graphics also gives value-in-kind sponsorship to USAB by taking care of all the association’s printing needs at little or no charge. This includes printing USAB stationary, USAB ballots, and USAB media guides for free. The USAB 32-page full-color magazine is produced for the price of a 12-page two-color newsletter. K & D Graphics has sponsored most of the major badminton tournaments in the US since 1996 including the US Opens, the US Adult Nationals, and the US Junior Nationals. K & D Graphics continued to sponsor USAB activities even when business was poor from 1999 to 2001. The Chew Family also volunteered countless hours to assist the USAB national office, which currently only has two administrative employees and an intern due to past USOC budget cuts. This volunteer effort enables a greater portion of the USAB’s meager budget to be spent on the athletes and member services. Don handles daily communications to the badminton international and continental organizations. Montri and Gus Chew, who help manage K & D Graphics and our family’s other businesses, volunteer their valuable time to administer the USAB web site, the USAB national rankings, the USAB magazine, and USAB athlete issues. Kim, Don’s wife, has strongly supported Don’s work with behind-the-scene volunteer effort that results in national tournaments running smoothly at OCBC. The Chew Family has been a major USAB sponsor. USAB’s 2003 budget is $621,977 including $393,575 (63%) from USOC sources, $85,902 (14%) from K & D Graphics sponsorship of the NTC and other USAB programs, and only $45,000 (7%) from membership dues. Over 43% of the USAB budget goes directly to regional developments, court official certification, coaching certification, national coach salary, the NTC program, and international competition costs of Elite athletes. OCBC receives $30,000 per year from USAB to run the NTC program for Elite athletes (currently defined as the top-4 winners in an event at the most recent Adult Nationals), which is actually only 47% of the total budgeted NTC cost, and $16,000 per year to buy shuttlecocks used for the NTC program. The USAB funding for the NTC program has not increased over the past two years even though OCBC continued to accept more USAB athletes into the training program. The decision by USAB to provide funding to OCBC was made by the USAB BOD without Don or Gus being involved in the voting. The Chew Family sponsorship shown in the USAB budget does not include national tournament sponsorships, US Open sponsorship, the private funding to individual top US athletes or Don’s travel expenses to USAB, USOC, and IBF functions that are always paid for personally – these expenses total more than $100,000 in 2002. Please note that USAB is also responsible for sanctioning tournaments and other badminton related activities and that USOC funding of USAB is probably among the lowest for any NGB. The USAB budget information and board meeting minutes are always available to any USAB member who requests it. Finally, there is the opportunity cost of using the space in the commercial building that is owned by Chew Family for the Orange County Badminton Club. If the Chew Family was interested in just making money, the space could be rent out or used for “more productive” business purpose and conservatively make at least $360,000 a year. Thus, the annual Chew Family’s financial cost to support promoting badminton in the US is well over half a million dollars. USA Badminton Problems Unfortunately, certain self-serving individuals in the USAB have exhausted the patience of our family. Besides spending our valuable time and money, Don’s efforts to improve USAB has come at the expense of increasing stress for Don and our family. We understand that as a leader and public figure, Don would be the target of unfair attacks and only reluctantly agreed to let him run for the office of USAB President. However, once we are committed to doing something as a family, we give it our best efforts, which is why we have been successful in business. We have fully supported Don and Gus in their efforts but now feel that the personal costs are too great to bear, especially since the three of us do not share their deep passion for badminton. We have seen self-serving individuals abused the USOC athlete grievance rules to try to coerce the USAB organization to do what they want. This sort of things probably goes on at other National Governing Bodies (NGB) and because most of these organizations are naturally adverse to controversies, the complaining athletes probably get what they want often just by threatening to file a USOC grievance. We understand that athletes need to have their rights protected, but what we’ve experience recently led us to conclude that NGBs really have a difficult time trying to impose any sort of discipline on the athletes under their charge. Based on our experience with USOC Ombudsman John Ruger, high school coaches seem to have more rights to discipline unruly athletes than NGB coaches. It’s no wonder to us now that the United States win so few medals relative to its population size and economic strength. The specific abuses of the USOC athlete grievance process that caused our family to decide to back away from supporting USAB are two formal USOC grievances specifically targeting Don Chew and Gus Chew that were filed as a result of actions overwhelmingly approved by the duly elected USAB BOD. Each time, there was someone at the USOC willing to listen to the accusations and advocated that Don and Gus somehow have a conflict of interest problem. Anyone who has put his passion, his money, and his time towards serving in the best interest of the Olympic movement would be insulted by such presumptions of wrongdoing. The Lake Placid National Training Center Controversy The first incident dealt with the USAB BOD’s decision to close the USAB Lake Placid NTC at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center in 2001. With the expiration of the USOC joint marketing agreement funding, USAB lost a net $100,000 in annual funding. Budget cuts along with other factors forced the USAB BOD to close the training center. The parents of the resident junior athletes, led by Beth Sopka and Bob Scholl, with the support of USAB Director Linda French protested vehemently and started an unsuccessful mass email petition campaign that resulted in personal attacks against Don as well as our family. One mass email message stated that we should “pack and go home.” The USOC became involved through now former USOC ethics compliance officer Pat Rodgers, who prejudicially concluded that Don and Gus had a conflict of interest in voting on closing the Lake Placid NTC. Mr. Rodgers listen to the complaints from Beth Sopka, but never bothered to talk with Don or Gus to get our side of the story. Mr. Rodgers demanded that USAB BOD revote the issue without Don and Gus present on the vote or the discussion. The majority of the USAB BOD supported the closure decision and told Mr. Rodgers a revote was not necessary. The USOC through Mr. Rodgers resolved this issue in an unprofessional manner that automatically accused Don and Gus of a conflict of interest when none existed. Our family was not happy at all about what happened. The Jinadasa Family Controversy The second incident is the recent Title IX USOC grievance against USAB by the Jinadasa Family. On September 23rd, 2002, Don Chew wanted to talk to junior athlete Nicholas Jinadasa regarding an anonymous public Internet posting attacking USAB for adopting a new national ranking system based on the IBF world ranking system. Don simply wanted to find out if Nicholas had posted the message since there were evidences suggesting that he was the one who did it. Don wanted to counsel Nicholas if he was the poster of the attack message that there were more appropriate ways to air his grievances within the organization. Also in the meeting were USAB Coach Ignatius Rusli, Nicholas’s sister Samantha, and Kim Chew, who came in after Nicholas started yelling at Don. Nicholas became very belligerent with Don soon after the meeting started when Don asked him about the Internet posting. Nicholas ranted about free speech rights, kept interrupting Don from speaking, and told Don “You have no right to talk to me. I am just a kid. If you have anything then talk to my dad.” After Nicholas started yelling, Don told him that he does have the right to talk to him about this subject since Nicholas is an NTC junior athlete, Don is the USAB President, and that if Nicholas won’t let Don speak uninterrupted then he should “get out of here.” Nicholas got up and left the room. Samantha then cried and told Don, “Mr. Chew, I am sorry. My brother is always like this.” a statement that she later denied making even though she had also told USAB Elite athlete May Mankalakiri the same thing in a separate conversation. Nicholas then came back to get his sister Samantha and yelled, “Let’s go Sam. We don’t have to listen to him!” He also yelled at Don “You didn’t do anything for us. I owe you nothing!” Don consulted with USAB Executive Committee members including Executive Director Dan Cloppas as well as the facility sponsor, his family, about what should be done about Nicholas’s insubordination. Gus noted that all the NTC athletes were warned back in August about irresponsible actions because some of them were posting anonymous public Internet postings attacking US athletes who competed the Junior Pan Am Badminton Championships. We knew these messages were coming from NTC athletes because of the “insider” nature of the information. The most offensive Internet postings targeted Jun Hu, a recent emigrant from China who was not in the NTC program but who qualified to participate in the Junior Pan Am Badminton competitions. She was attacked with false claims that she under-reported her age. USAB, specifically Don, was also attacked with false claims that USAB knew about her “real” age but allowed her to compete anyway since Jun was somehow favored by Don. However, no one in the Chew Family even met Jun until she participated in the 2002 Junior Nationals, when Sunil Jinadasa actually asked Don and Gus to ban Jun from playing in the Junior Nationals because she was supposedly not qualified to play. However, Jun had produced legal proof of her age and legal residency by showing her certified birth certificate and passport to USAB officials and no one ever produced any conflicting legal evidence. The Chew Family also never sponsored Jun Hu. In any case, these public Internet postings damaged USAB’s reputation as well as our country’s reputation since people around the world read them – a Canadian badminton player left an Internet posting that said the US must have cheated to win the Pan Am Junior badminton team competitions based on what he read. Some of these anonymous postings also contained racially offensive statements and called USAB a corrupt organization. When an investigation of the derogatory Internet postings was conducted, NTC junior athlete Brendan Taft stated that he had confronted Nicholas about the Internet attack messages since Brendan partnered with Jun during the Junior Pan Am competitions and was also personally attacked in many of these messages. Brendan said that Nicholas admitted to him that he posted many of the messages and would stop doing so. There was also another incident with Nicholas, where he yelled, “You suck!” at Catharine Lee, the mother of USAB Elite athlete Eva Lee after he was told that the NTC coaches decided to have Eva partner in mixed doubles with Mike Chansawangpuvana instead of with him. He apparently was under the impression that Mrs. Lee was behind the switch. After reviewing all the information regarding Nicholas, everyone agreed that if Nicholas did not apologize sincerely the next day then he should be removed from the NTC program because he has a pattern of disciplinary problems. When Nicholas’s father Sunil refused to come meet with Don right away and after Nicholas came to train at OCBC the next day and acted as if nothing had happened for two hours, Gus Chew and Coach Rusli then met with him in front of the other athletes since he refused to meet in private. Gus and Coach Rusli informed Nicholas of USAB’s decision to remove him from the NTC program. Nicholas was defiant and told Gus, “You’re in trouble. We [the Jinadasa Family] have a lawyer!” and “Watch your back!” Many NTC athletes who were nearby heard Nicholas’s threats. Sunil and Nicholas did come to OCBC the following day to apologize verbally, but it was not a sincere apology as their later actions confirmed. The Chew Family also barred Sunil from entering the OCBC facility because of his apparent support for his son’s insubordination and for several recent problems where Sunil caused damage to the reputation of OCBC and received warnings from Don. We have documentations and eyewitnesses to justify our action against Sunil, including an apology letter for a previous problem he caused. It had nothing to do with Sunil’s campaign against the USAB new national ranking system since we are well aware of his free speech rights. Instead of attempting further to reconcile with the Chew Family, Sunil sent an email the next day and threatened “to go to higher channels” if Nicholas is not reinstated into the NTC program. His wife Wendy, who we continued to allow to enter OCBC because Nicholas’ sister Samantha was still in the NTC program, began harassing other OCBC members by insisting on telling them how her son Nicholas did nothing wrong and that the USOC will force the Chew Family to accept her son back into the NTC program. After getting some complaints, we move to bar her from the OCBC facility. At the Fall 2002 USAB BOD meeting, the BOD reviewed the facts surrounding the Nicholas Jinadasa disciplinary action and confirmed the action taken against Nicholas Jinadasa. The BOD also voted to reorganize the NTC program by increasing the qualification necessary to join the NTC program because of continuing budget constraints and the problem of too many potential athletes qualifying for the NTC program. The previous standard that allows for the top-4 positions in the under-15, under-17, under-19, and under-21 events in the Junior Nationals in addition to the Adult Nationals could potentially produce 160 qualified players if there are no repeat winners. With the increasing numbers of top junior players that OCBC and other clubs are producing, the NTC program could soon be overwhelmed. The new standard requiring the NTC Elite athletes to place in the top-4 positions in an event at the most recent Adult Nationals allows up to 32 athletes to qualify for the NTC program since there are five disciplines. Six athletes in the NTC program qualified under the new standard and remained in the program. OCBC agreed to take the athletes that were removed from the NTC program into the private OCBC team program since OCBC was really sponsoring them all along. The USAB BOD decided that local grassroots effort must be responsible for training the top junior players unless USAB gets more resources so $5,000 were allocated for each of the five regions to provide seed money for local junior training programs or to promote local tournaments. After Nicholas was dropped from the NTC program, Nicholas and Samantha continued to participate in national ranking tournaments, even at the Sudirman Cup team qualification competition trials and the 2002 Southern California Badminton Association (SCBA) Classic Regional Badminton Tournament that were held at OCBC in December 2002. We allowed the Jinadasa parents to enter the OCBC facility during these USAB-sanctioned events. They proceeded to abuse this privilege during the SCBA Classic by publicly distributing letters from Nicholas and Samantha to the USOC asking for investigation of USOC Title IX violations by USAB. They falsely claimed that USAB have prevented them from competing in “protected competitions”, i.e. competitions that would allow them to potentially qualify to play in the Olympic games or other world championships, even though their children were never prevented from competing in any USAB tournaments. They also gave a mostly fabricated account of what happened between Don and Nicholas on September 23rd, 2002 in an attempt to assassinate the characters of Don and Gus Chew to strengthen their grievance case. The Chew Family is completely appalled by the Jinadasa Family’s public disinformation campaign and is still considering legal action in response to their libelous action. Sunil also sent out a mass email attacking the way the SCBA Classic tournament was run and making false claims that “certain USAB officials” were harassing their children. Because of this accusation, OCBC had no choice but to terminate Samantha Jinadasa from the OCBC team program. Sunil’s irresponsible action also resulted in SCBA asking him to resign from their BOD. In any event, USAB and OCBC have respected and will continue to respect the Jinadasa Family’s rights under USOC Title IX rules. Nicholas and Samantha have always been and will continue to be able to participate in any USAB sanctioned tournaments held at OCBC. Sunil and Wendy Jinadasa were banned from OCBC for handing out the false allegations at the 2002 SCBA Classic but these bans were lifted after they claimed USOC Title IX protection as “coaches” and “managers” of their children. Problems with USOC Ombudsman John Ruger While all this is going on, the Jinadasa family also completely bypassed the established grievance process in the USA Badminton’s Bylaws by claiming that everyone involved in the USAB grievance process has conflict of interest and went straight to the USOC with their grievance. USOC Ombudsman John Ruger’s unreasonable support of the Jinadasa family’s grievance and his arrogance of presuming that Don was somehow guilty really upset Don and our family. After the Jinadasa Family first filed an informal grievance with the USOC, Mr. Ruger told Don in a conference call that he saw no justification for the action taken by USAB to eject Nicholas Jinadasa from the NTC program. Mr. Ruger said that what Nicholas did was not unacceptable since athletes in other NGBs yell at their coaches and officials all the time. Mr. Ruger went on to tell Don that 9 out of 10 NGBs lose their arbitration case against the athletes. Mr. Ruger also said that he saw no need for Nicholas to apologize at all. Mr. Ruger implied a conflict of interest in Don’s dual position as USAB President and its major sponsor and in Don’s appointment of Gus Chew as the USAB Olympic Player Development (OPD) Committee Chair. Mr. Ruger’s statements really upset our family since the USAB BOD elected Don after carefully considered the potential conflict of interest issue. As USAB President, Don has the right under the Bylaws to appoint committee chairpersons who can best work with him to get things done. Gus also reports the OPD Committee’s work to the USAB BOD on a regular basis and the USAB BOD always has the final authority over OPD issues in accordance with USAB Bylaws. Don wanted to meet with Mr. Ruger to point out the numerous outright lies contained in their grievance documents. At the USOC meeting last November, the USAB delegation including Don and Kim were at the table near where Mr. Ruger was sitting. Mr. Ruger brushed off two attempts by USAB Executive Director Dan Cloppas and USAB USOC Representative Steve Kearney to schedule a meeting. Don had to approach him personally to request a meeting and was told he had time to meet next morning at the breakfast room. The following morning, the USAB delegation including Don and Kim waited to meet with Mr. Ruger, but he was sitting at another table nearby and ignored them. After a few minutes, USAB’s USOC Representative Steve Kearney decided to take action and approached Mr. Ruger about the meeting. Mr. Ruger then met with the USAB delegation and immediately started a tirade about how USAB and the Chew Family had violated the Jinadasa Family’s rights. Mr. Ruger stated that the Chew Family had no right to ban their mother since Nicholas and Samantha were minors. Mr. Ruger attacked Don for “importing foreign players to beat US players”. Mr. Ruger even believed the Jinadasa Family’s claim that Nicholas was the #2 men’s singles player in the US and demanded why “one of the best US player” was being prevented from training at the USAB NTC. All his criticisms were absurd since as an example Nicholas Jinadasa could not beat anyone that he played against during the Sudirman Cup team qualification trial round-robin competitions last December, even against Hao Tu, who had only been in the NTC program for a year. Mr. Ruger bought in all the Jinadasa Family’s accusations and gave Don little chance to explain USAB’s position. He demanded that USAB accept the Jinadasa children back into the USAB NTC program. Mr. Ruger was rude and dominated the discussion when he could have been at least courteous enough to get the facts from USAB first. We understand that an ombudsman’s job is to advocate the athlete’s position in a dispute, but Mr. Ruger compromised his ability to mediate this dispute by being so strongly prejudiced against Don and our family. Issues of Self-Interest Since conflict of interest and acting out of self-interest are core issues, we need to discuss the motives of Chew Family versus the Jinadasa Family and the people who support them. The Chew Family really has better things to do than to be vindictive towards the Jinadasa Family or anyone else. We only act to defend ourselves. We had privately sponsored Nicholas and Samantha Jinadasa in our own OCBC training program for many years before they joined the NTC program, which was expanded because OCBC agreed to take on the extra burden without additional costs to USAB. If they had to pay for the training that they received through our family’s private sponsorship, it would have cost them tens of thousands of dollars. Don is also a very forgiving person. In one incident before he became USAB President, a top badminton athlete insulted him using a profanity in response to a simple request, so Don kicked him out of the OCBC facility. The next day he came back and apologized to Don with a sincere letter, so Don forgave him and everything was fine. The Chew Family’s self-interest as far as badminton goes is in the long-term success of badminton in this country and that would not be possible if we engage in petty things like nepotism as some has claimed. As for Don’s nephew Mike Chansawangpuvana, a favorite target of false nepotism charges, he is currently in the private OCBC team program and was in the NTC program before the standards was raised by the USAB BOD, which affected many other athletes. Mike is held to the same performance standards as the other athletes in the training program. Mike is currently performing well with his partner Eric Go in winning gold medals at the 2002 Peru International Open Badminton Championships Men’s Doubles event and at the XIII Pan American Junior Badminton Championships Under-19 Boy’s Doubles event. Don as USAB President fully supports all NTC coaching staff decisions that are not arbitrary. If the coaching staff ever decides that Mike cannot meet the performance standards then Mike will be removed from the training program. Nick Ketpura, another nephew of Don Chew was dropped from the training program by the coaches a few years ago even though he had just won an under-21 Junior National event. As for the Jinadasa Family, Sunil Jinadasa himself told Gus shortly after the September 23rd incident that Nicholas apparently hates Don because he thought Don was unfairly denying him a strong men’s doubles partner. Apparently the problem started when Nicholas tried to partner with Olympic gold medallist Tony Gunawan for a local badminton tournament earlier in 2002. However, Tony Gunawan is a contract OCBC player employee so OCBC has total discretion as to what Tony does in badminton competitions. Don could have played favorites and have Tony partner with Don’s nephew Mike Chansawangpuvana since who ever has Tony as his partner will greatly benefit from the experience of playing with one of the best players in the world, but Don really had better things to do than engage in such pettiness. Based on the NTC coaches recommendation, OCBC had Tony partnered with USAB Elite athlete Khankham Malaythong, who has absolutely no relation to the Chew Family and moved from Colorado Springs, Colorado to Orange, California when the Colorado Springs Badminton National Training Center was closed due to lack of space. Don has always told the NTC coaches to use their best judgments to produce the best results for the US because that was how the USAB BOD would review their job performances. Don has never “fixed” partners for the NTC athletes. All NTC athletes can certainly disagree with the NTC coaches, but it takes two persons who want to partner together and were unreasonably denied the opportunity by USAB to make a legitimate case and that has never happened under the current NTC program. Finally, we recognize the Jinadasa Family have done a lot of badminton volunteer work, but then almost all the other families with children involved in badminton put in a lot of volunteer work and none of them have caused troubles like the Jinadasa Family have. Continuing with the self-interest issue, we have been informed that USAB Director Linda French, Beth Sopka, Bob Scholl, and USAB Director Matt Fogarty are supporters of the Jinadasa Family’s grievance case. USAB Director Linda French is a former Olympian. Her brother, Martin French, used to be the USAB President for many years. Martin French was the Olympic Player Development Committee Chair in the period leading up to the 1996 Olympic games when Linda French qualified to play for the US. Here’s an interesting article on page 30 in the September 1996 (Volume 24 No. 3) issue of IBF World Badminton magazine: “The American achievement – costing $2,000 a minute THERE was an incredulous article in a USA newspaper titled “PAIR OF ACES” by staff writer Julie K. Miller who apparently was given the despairing job of writing about two American doubles players who never had any hope of success at Olympic level. They are Linda French (who has a law degree) and works as a sports director and is past 32 years, and Erika von Heiland who is all but 31. They apparently spent US$28,000 travelling to gain points to get to the Olympic games and that worked out at approximately $2,000 a minute for the match with Stuer-Lauridsen and Thomsen and for their five points it was $5,600 each. At least Kevin Han went three games with Peter Knowles but then Han is 23 years of age. Nevertheless there was a waste of money all around just so that each could say that they achieved some sort of principle of competing (or should it be attending) the Olympic games. Ladies, there is always the Masters Games where there is good competition, and they start at 35 years of age. But the wider question is – Can Dr. Cliff McPeak [USAB Executive Director at the time] turn the state of badminton around and get it back to the glory days?” Beth Sopka and Bob Scholl are unhappy that the USAB BOD closed down the Lake Placid NTC where both Beth’s son and Bob’s son were both resident junior athletes. The fact is USAB was told by USOC that it should use USOC resources first on athletes who have the best chance to qualify for the next (2004) Olympic games and none of the USAB Elite athletes were willing to relocate to Lake Placid Olympic Training Center due to lack of jobs and nearby colleges. Don Chew actually did a lot of work to get the Lake Placid NTC open, including visiting the facility to evaluate it while he was just recovering from the debilitating Bell’s Palsies. Beth and her compatriots want a National Training Center on the East Coast and Don tried to find a way to accommodate them by requesting that USOC provide USAB with more resources, but more resources have not been made available so far. The Chew Family really wonders though why no other successful badminton enthusiasts has taken up the challenge in other areas of this country and build badminton facilities like OCBC that could serve as additional national badminton training sites. It seems like everyone just want handouts from USAB and USOC when there isn’t any to give. Bob Scholl’s son, Adam, had trained under coach Rusli before he was hired by USAB at OCBC with the sponsorship of the Chew Family. Bob had a verbal altercation with coach Rusli at a Junior National Badminton Championships when coach Rusli refused to coach his son during a match played against Don’s nephew, Mike, because coach Rusli had coached both players. It would have been unfair for him to coach one in favor of the other. After that incident, coach Rusli refused to train Adam privately so Don terminated the sponsorship and Bob became mad at him. The Mathew Fogarty Controversy USAB Director Mathew Fogarty was a friend of Don and the Chew Family. Matt did help Don work to improve USA Badminton until recently when the USAB BOD acted against Matt’s self-interest. Matt is trying to qualify to represent the US at the 2003 Pan Am Games under the previously qualification system that uses the IBF world ranking system as the primary criteria. As of February 20, 2003, the following USAB athletes are the highest four IBF-ranked US citizens in the five badminton disciplines: Men’s Singles: Eric Go (OCBC team) #81 Jonathan Taryoto #192 Raju Rai (OCBC team) #216 Nicholas Jinadasa #217 Women’s Singles: Mesinee Mangkalakiri (USAB Elite) #65 Elie Wu #74 Eva Lee (USAB Elite) #119 Erin Hois (USAB Elite) #190 Men’s Doubles: Howard Bach (USAB Elite) / Kevin Han (USAB Elite) #15 Mike Chansawangpuvana (OCBC team) / Eric Go (OCBC team) #51 Mathew Fogarty / Dean Schoppe #85 Raju Rai (OCBC team) / Amarit Rojsirivit (OCBC team-not US Citizen) #171 Women’s Doubles: Mesinee Mangkalakiri (USAB Elite) / Elie Wu #56 Samantha Jinadasa / Eva Lee (OCBC team) #141 Erin Hois (USAB Elite) / Lina Taft #181 Erin Hois (USAB Elite) / Eva Lee (OCBC team) #197 Mixed Doubles: Mathew Fogarty / Lina Taft #64 Mike Chansawangpuvana (OCBC team) / Eva Lee (OCBC team) #108 Eric Go (OCBC team) / Elie Wu #174 Mike Chansawangpuvana (OCBC team) / Mesinee Mangkalakiri (USAB Elite) #229 Because of rule changes made by the Pan American Sports Organization (PASO) and the Pan American Badminton Confederation (PABC) for the upcoming Pan Am Games, Olympic Player Development Committee Chair Gus Chew had to lead the USAB effort to come up with a qualification system for badminton that would be acceptable to PASO, PABC, and USOC. USAB, working closely with USOC officials, came up with a trial selection process instead of using the IBF ranking system as the primary criteria. Matt is fighting against the trial selection process for the Pan Am Games even though he has been strongly in favor of USAB using the trial selection process in the past. He even used his position as the AAC Representative to create a controversy at the USOC by being the only USOC Athlete Advisory Council (AAC) Representative to refuse to sign his National Governing Body’s submitted Pan Am Games selection process. Matt also conducted personal attacks against other USAB Directors, including Gus Chew, who has nothing at all to gain from whatever selection process is approved for the upcoming Pan Am Games. The majority of the USAB BOD is in favor of the trial selection process, but Matt seems determine to do whatever it takes regardless of the damage caused to USAB in order to win a spot for himself on the US Pan Am Games without earning it by competing against other top USAB athletes in trial competitions. Don tried unsuccessfully to come up with some sort of a compromise that would satisfy Matt. If USAB meets Matt’s demand, other top US athletes who could not afford the international travel costs during the qualification period (assuming they even knew about the previous qualification system) would likely file grievances against any IBF-ranking based selection process because USAB has jurisdiction over the selection process. It’s a no-win situation for USAB. Of course, USOC Ombudsman John Ruger complains to Don in a recent conference call that having two Title IX grievance cases pending against USAB really makes USAB looks bad and could cost USAB tens of thousands of dollars. We suppose that Mr. Ruger would be perfectly happy if USAB just let these self-serving individuals get what they want even if it’s unfair. On February 12, 2003, Matt Fogarty sent out an email to many USA Badminton members that started off as follows, “As many of you know, I consider Don and Gus Chew as good friends. They and their family have contributed more to USA Badminton than anyone in its history. It is with great hope that they will continue to help all USA Badminton players in their pursuit of excellence.” The rest of the letter express support for the Jinadasa Family’s grievance case by repeating their false allegations and giving dubious legal advices to USAB using his position as the USOC AAC Representative and a USAB Director to give their case more legitimacy in the public. Matt sent out this letter after he was informed that many NTC athletes, who had been given information about the USAB Pan Am Games selection process problem in respect of their USOC Title IX rights, are trying to remove him as the USAB AAC Representative. Of course, with good friends like Matt, who needs enemies? Matt’s irresponsible actions really saddened Don and left him feeling very discouraged. The USOC athlete grievance procedures seem to overwhelmingly favor disgruntled athletes in allowing them to cause all sorts of trouble for the NGB regardless of the merits of their grievance. As with the Jinadasa Family’s grievance, the process seems to encourage the disgruntled athletes to be as outrageous as possible. In any case, we understand that USAB is formally responding to both these grievances and will follow the USAB BOD’s decisions in resolving them, which could ultimately mean binding arbitration hearings. Consequences All the recent stresses from dealing with the Jinadasa Family’s attacks and Matt Fogarty’s attacks have exhausted our family. We are tired of having to constantly defend ourselves against unfair charges because the USAB BOD has been willing to take controversial actions under Don’s leadership in order to try to improve badminton in the US. It’s too easy for people who have betrayed the Olympic ideals to attack with lies that our family, especially Don, cannot continue to tolerate since integrity, honor, and honesty are very important to us. The joys that our family feel in contributing to the Olympic movement through working for and sponsoring USAB is now pretty much gone after repeated abuses by a few self-serving individuals backed first by Mr. Rodgers and now by Mr. Ruger at the USOC, who we strongly feel has abused his USOC position in trying to force his will on a major USAB sponsor. We can no longer tolerate the jealousy and contempt for Don’s USAB leadership role and for our USAB contributions. We - Kim, Bebe, and Montri - have informed Don and Gus that we have withdrawn our support for our family’s continuing involvement with USAB in order to reduce the stresses that had begun to negatively affect our family life. We also feel that it is now very unlikely that USAB can help produce US athletes who can compete effectively at the Olympic games because the USOC athlete grievance procedures is too easily abused therefore NGB officials and coaches cannot really discipline unruly athletes without creating a costly controversy every time. Don and our family know the kind of fierce international competitions that US badminton players faces from our collective international badminton experiences including seeing the world’s best competed at the US Open Badminton Championships that we have sponsored and hosted for the past seven years. Our country’s badminton athletes have no hope of beating the top players from other countries if they don’t have better discipline, which they can’t have if they don’t even have to respect their coaches and NGB officials. Because Don is always a generous and giving person, the three of us own the majority interests in both K & D Graphics and Orange County Badminton Club so Don is not kidding when he tells people that his family can out vote him. After extensive discussion about what we should do, our family have decided on the follow course of actions: 1. Don will step down as USA Badminton President at the end of his current term. We have an obligation to the current USAB athletes and will continue our support until the end of the quadrennial to ensure that they receive the support they deserve. Don has been working very hard over the past three years, having come out of semi-retirement in 1999 to lead our family’s effort to reorganize K & D Graphics in order to stay competitive in the fast-changing printing industry and working full-time as USAB President since 2001. We feel that Don, as well as Montri and Gus who both have put in way too many hours to support Don in take care of USAB businesses instead of the family’s real businesses, need to reduce or eliminate their USAB responsibilities and enjoy life more. 2. OCBC and K & D Graphics will stop all sponsorship of the USAB NTC program on 12/31/2003 or as soon as USAB can relocate the NTC program. We were helping USAB by giving all top USAB athletes a chance to benefit from our family’s badminton resources, but we cannot continue participating in the NTC program if USAB does not have the ability to discipline unruly athletes. The OCBC team program will continue unchanged until 12/31/2003 when we will do a complete review of the program. We will probably continue to sponsor only a few athletes that we feel have the potential to make it past the first round of badminton Olympic competitions. 3. OCBC will not bid for or host any future USAB sanctioned tournaments including the US Open and the US Nationals after the Jerry Toms Senior International in January 2004. We will meet our existing USAB tournament obligations, unlike the Lake Placid group who withdrew from their winning 2002 US Junior Nationals bid after the Lake Placid NTC closed down. However, we will not indefinitely tolerate the USOC requirement to admit people we can’t trust into the OCBC facility when we host USAB sanctioned tournaments since they have their USOC Title IX rights. 4. K & D Graphics will stop sponsoring all USAB tournaments, programs, and printing services when Don Chew is no longer USAB President. Most USAB volunteer work by the Chew Family will also be discontinued at that time. Since we feel that our USAB sponsorship can no longer produce the desired result of producing US athletes who can compete effectively in Olympic games due to the inability of USAB officials and coaches to discipline unruly athletes under current USOC rules, we would rather concentrate our resources on our own private efforts. Please note that without our sponsorship, the 1998 and subsequent US Open Badminton Championships would not have likely been held. 5. All other private badminton sponsorships will be given a complete review to concentrate our family’s resources that are still committed to Don’s badminton dream to actually produce US athletes who can actually compete in Olympic competitions and not be the joke of the international badminton community. 6. The Chew Family will also give more consideration to the option of really pursuing our family’s self-interest and just concentrate on expanding K & D Graphics, which was recently reorganized by Don after our family invested in almost $9 million worth of new equipment over the last three years. We could decide to significantly increase printing sales since K & D Graphics is currently only running at around 25% of our maximum equipment production capacity mainly because of production and warehouse space constraint, which can be relieved by closing down OCBC to free up additional building space for K & D Graphics. We want to stop our USAB sponsorship as soon as possible, but we respect the fiduciary responsibilities that Don and Gus have to USAB and especially to the top badminton athletes when they were elected to the USAB BOD. We also appreciate all the good people, including most of the USAB BOD and volunteers, who have worked very hard to advance the sport of badminton against overwhelming obstacles since they share Don Chew’s dream. We are sorry for all the people who will suffer from the decision to withdraw our USAB sponsorship, especially the dedicated athletes and their parents who made great sacrifices like relocated across the country to Orange County, California in order to have the opportunity to train in the USAB NTC program at OCBC. However, we feel that the current USOC athlete grievance procedures will continue to cause problems for Don and our family since Don really believes that the best US badminton athletes represent the US and USAB has to follow rules and principles in dealing with unfair demands. Athletes are humans like the rest of us and should not be automatically be revered. We urge the USOC to review the USOC athlete grievance process during the upcoming reform process. Some will say that we should not let the self-serving individuals who attack our family “win”, but we no longer care about that since we have decided that we should enjoy our life more by reducing the amount of time and money that we spend on badminton. Don does not deserve the abuses and attacks that he had to endure especially over the last few months. If anything, he has worked too hard all his life and has been too generous in giving to his family and to the community. |
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