Sunday Long Read: One Hell Of A Racket

You might not think Minnesota would be the capital of high school badminton, but St. Paul Johnson High is home of the Governors, one of the most dominant sports dynasties in America today, and it's all about the Twin Cities' Hmong community and a 40-year reign of shuttlecock superiority.

Kevin Anderson, reporter, blogger, historian, and director of the Minnesota state badminton tournament, knows a lot about high school badminton in the state. Records about its start as a high school sport are scant, but apparently Minneapolis city schools first held a tournament in 1975, while St. Paul high schools held their own city tournament starting in 1978. According to those bare-bones records, Johnson High School has won 24 St. Paul city championships since 1978. (Neighboring Harding High has the second-most wins at 11.) The late-1970s timing indicates badminton was likely introduced to comply with Title IX; it’s a sport that can be played indoors in the spring when there’s less demand for gym space, and one that requires little investment in facilities or equipment.

“Since I’ve been around, badminton in St. Paul has been dominated by Hmong players. The St. Paul city conference generally has the best players and the best teams in the state,” Anderson said. “It’s serious business in St. Paul. Middle schoolers have hours of training before they even get to high school, and they probably play more in the off season. Their parents have either played or know of it, so it’s a more familiar sport than, say, basketball or track and field. For a lot of the girls on the C squad, badminton is the only sport they participate in.”

Hmong, an ethnic group that lived in the mountains of Laos and assisted the U.S. in fighting its “secret war” in the country during the 1960s and 70s, started arriving in Minnesota in 1975, the same year that badminton was introduced to high schools. Badminton enjoys great popularity in Asia, and Hmong refugees brought that enthusiasm with them. There are now more than 66,000 Hmong in Minnesota, the largest community in the U.S., concentrated in the Twin Cities metro area.

Many Hmong lived as farmers in Laos; some were illiterate in their native language. In 1990, only 19 percent of Hmong women in the U.S. had a high school diploma, and 44 percent of Hmong men. At that time, an estimated 65 percent of Hmong lived in poverty. Hmong women traditionally married young and had large families, limiting their educational and economic outlook. But as of 2010, more Hmong women than men earned bachelor’s degrees, and poverty in the Hmong community dropped to 31 percent (still staggering in real numbers). In 1991, Choua Lee was elected to the St. Paul School Board, the first Hmong elected to any public office in the United States.

Like their east St. Paul neighborhood, Johnson High School’s demographics do not speak to a gilded pathway: Thirty-one percent of students are English learners, and 82 percent are on free or reduced lunch. Fifty-four percent of students are Asian American, 24 percent African American, 10 percent Hispanic, 10 percent white. But 60 percent of this year’s 1,302 students took part in early college programs.

The top badminton players are also strong students—the varsity team includes three of Johnson’s top 10 academically. They’re involved in other sports and clubs, often holding down a part-time job on top of everything else. Unlike some other high-school sports stars, though, private coaches and expensive training camps are not part of these girls’ lives.

This is a pretty good story, and I remember hearing about badminton in the Twin Cities when I lived up there 15 years ago, but I had no idea it was at this level, and it's good to see.