Regular readers of The Economist might have clocked a brief article on baseball in China in the February 13, 2010 Edition (p. 68). The piece hinges on the potential of China to yield a few strong armed pitchers and the efforts of Major League Baseball to find them. With only mild success after the Olympics (many of the purpose built stadiums having been razed), baseball struggles to find foothold in Asia’s most populous nation.

In contrast, basketball generates massive interest. With an estimated 300 million hoops fiends (suggested by The Economist) and a rabid fandom surrounding the NBA, basketball is the model baseball wishes to follow (again, noted in The Economist). China has produced stars of its own, and by all accounts China also champions the American hard court legend.

The NBA Star undoubtedly fuels Chinese interest in basketball. Because of this, I am consistently intrigued by emerging basketball brands from China and couldn’t resist the opportunity to travel to Portland last week for Li Ning’s grand US opening.

Founded in 1990, Li Ning offers a dizzying array of athletic apparel, equipment and footwear in the PRC. It’s namesake, Li Ning, has a firm grounding in athletic competition – as one of China’s most decorated Olympians, winning 3 golds during the 1984 Summer Games. He retired in 1988, focusing attention two years later to sporting goods. Since inception, Li Ning has grown into one of the most competitive brands in the domestic market. An international hold, however, has proved elusive.

I first heard about Li Ning when former Cavelier Damon Jones signed what seemed a bizarre footwear deal with the company. His sponsorship did little to introduce the brand to the USA, but it did mark a slowly progressing entry into the global basketball market.

Several years later, Li Ning returns to the US with a list of heavy hitters – Baron Davis and Shaq – along with the newly opened Portland flagship store.

On the surface, Li Ning has done the obvious. They’ve attracted aging stars with big personalities, just what one needs to generate a little buzz. Given the hold of the NBA in China, this move certainly has positive ramifications on the domestic market as well, however in Baron sights are now firmly set on the cradle of basketball.

Along side a strong line-up of footwear dedicated to the more obscure atheltic venture – badmenton and table tennis – the Baron Davis signature shoe (the “BD DOOM”), is a high performance court sneaker with a type of player specific branding that is unfortunately often avoided. The shoe has birthed the Beardman. A logo, a character, and everything that stands for Baron’s carefree off-court personality. The Beardman has become its own toy and adorns everything from t-shirts to very impressive varsity jackets.

Li Ning, in Baron Davis, might not have a match for Lebron and the swoosh, but they certainly trump the efforts of other PRC brands (like PEAK) to break the US. And, they might successfully rival Under Armor’s swoop of phenom Brandon Jennings.

Talking with Li Ning Marketing Lead Eric Tian, its obvious the brand’s excited about Baron. To think of him as a silver bullet, however, would be to treat the global basketball market with undeserved shallowness.

Falling behind the this summer’s World Cup, and the current Winter Olympic Games, the FIBA World Basketball Championship won’t get the full mainstream media attention in 2010 it should. Granted, the World Championship’s have only just gotten competitive. The tournament might still be a decade away from providing true gripping drama. Twenty years, perhaps, away from becoming the true second to football as a global game.

Yet, when you look at the fans filling the seats at NBA games, there’s a trend almost impossible to ignore – foreign languages fill the arena sound scape. The rise of the Argentinian and Spanish teams to world powers (both have beaten the US in recent major tournaments) hasn’t quite been ignored.

Li Ning understands this growth. Their sponsorship of the two Nations mentioned above (the worlds 2nd and 3rd best teams) is what impresses me most about their basketball efforts. While some brands would think short – as the affiliation with Baron Davis does – Li Ning has an impressive long term vision.

The NBA will always be the home of the basketball star. But, the international game is growing and its increasingly impressive.

For that, I’ve got a little more faith than some in Li Ning’s basketball future. After all, who can deride an athletic brand for truly understanding where the core of sports is going.

Did you miss the 25th Anniversary episode of Eastenders? No worries, my cousin Sam (an actor, dancer, and Fulham fan) offers a brilliant synopsis of the action…

READ THE FOLLOWING IN AN EASTEND ACCENT!!

Well, that old bloke Archie only went and raped his daughter and put a bun in stacy’s oven! Bradley and Stacey got  married in the previous episode and he found out about Archie then ’supposedely’ murked him. The old bill go and find Bradelys DNA on the body so therefore go and pay the Ginger cunt a visit – but he and stacey clock the fact the boys in blue are after them so attempt to do a runner to Cyprus or somewhere. They get in the bleeding taxi, and Brazers (the fucking plonker) only went and left the particulars (passports) in his gaf! He goes back but gets spotted by the pigs and gets chased up some stairs onto the roof of the Queen Vic and fuckin stacks it over the edge and fall to his death! After all that malarky (the audience still not knowing who killed Archie) Stacey tells Bradleys Dad “it was me…. I killed him” Finally the famous da da da theme song kicks in! I was so fuckin gripped throughout – my dead milky cuppa remained untouched and went luke warm! That’s a first!

Having swiftly discussed t-shirts in my last entry, I will now turn attention to pants.

Combining the utility of wind pants with the comfort of sweats, the pants supplied to and preferred by prep school athletic programs are a distinct breed. My own were acquired through the hockey team. A classmate, promoted to varsity goal keeper for practice purposes mid-season, was on a frantic search to fill minimum numbers. Such are the pull of the pants. One isn’t on the team without them. Being an advantageous bastard, I agreed to help… with the request that he pay for them.

And, with that I arrived at these:

Owing to the fact that hockey was not my game, I opted against using my real name. Nick Danger, a character from Firesign Theater provided inspiration. The number 3 chosen via an Allen Iverson fetish.

Enough of these particular pants, let’s get to more general detail.

Like many prep pants these were produced in the Philadelphia area. Rennoc is based in Vineland, NJ and like Boathouse Sports, supplies general athletic garments directly to schools and universities. At Loomis, the bulk of our jackets (more on these later) came from Boathouse. Both manufacturers fall into a long history of athletic garment production in the Philadelphia area.

While New England is regularly understood as the heartland of American textile weaving (at least during the 19th and 20th-centuries), Philadelphia’s range of garment and textile related industry far surpassed its northern neighbors. In 1909 Philadelphia was the world’s largest textile center. Without going into enormous detail (something I will be in doing in a current project), the city is remarkable for birthing iconic brands like Stetson and simultaneously maintaining a diverse cross-section of the textile industry. Sportswear, and most explicitly athletic apparel, has been well represented in Greater Philadelphia and South Jersey.

Rennoc has been in operation for 50 years. They have recently discontinued the manufacture of nylon goods, focusing exclusively on wool. Though Rennoc will no longer produce the trousers that reminded me of their existence, the style of the warm-ups – like the tab t-shirt – fit a particular vision of prep school life.

As I mentioned before, the usual trappings of a “prep” look are not those that defined my prep school life. Athletic apparel, on the other hand, did. And, looking back the connection between the schools and relatively small American manufacturers helped to define both a distinct look and refine an appreciation for the pieces.

I’d be hard pressed to imagine any lasting feeling about our warm up pants had they come from Adidas or Nike. That they were made in America was hardly important, but the open cuff, short zip and sweat lining was. The details make the pants peculiar, far more casual than athletic. As such they become part of the prep weekend uniform. Coveted more, in some respects, by the bulk of the student body than by the athletes.

When I arrived at Loomis, Bubba Berenzwieg was on his way to the University of Michigan. The Wolverines triumphed in the NCAAs, Pelican hockey generated less glory. Like any freshman, I looked around my new surroundings and noticed what conveyed status. Hockey gear. Lacrosse gear. Not the technical attire, but the sweats.

My own desire was certainly prompted by the pull of varsity cool. These are pants that evoke a feeling. They don’t have a spectacular hand. They are not produced of the best material. In that way, they are quite indicative of most American made things. Purpose built through garment know how rather than technological expertise.

Like the tab t-shirt, these warm-ups make up the fabric of my prep life. It is distinctly American. It’s also, in my opinion, a touch under the radar. Sure, Abercrombie has made similar looking wind pants. But, they never quite get it right. The pieces made by small American firms and creating garments for the schools I attended did so with complete disregard for fashion. So, like all good things they became fashionable… or were given new use… through appropriation.

This is the soundtrack to my youth.

Triple headers. Knicks vs. Pacers. Jordan vs. … well, everyone. Ahmad Rashad’s bad suits. (were they Jordan’s suits?). Flat tops. Reeboks. The Dream. That guy on the rockets that looks like an alien.

John Tesh’s “NBA on NBC” theme song inspired instant good moods. I miss it only slightly more than I miss my ex-girlfriend.

(Also, I am rather upset that I am not going to all-star weekend, the best weekend in America).

There are a few garments that defined my prep school life. Many are obvious… the polo shirt, the oxford, the blazer… all requirements of various stages of the school dress code. For my first two years, I remained confined to the rules. Always a collar. Never jeans. (Junior and senior year I wore either a Fat Beats hooded sweatshirt or Rawkus Records t-shirt. A faculty member once high-fived me for these choices. Why I got away with it, I will never know).

At Loomis Chaffee (yes, I’m being bold enough to tell you all where I attended high school), dress was less stringent than my middle school. Ties were required then. High School allowed some breathing room. In that, our hallways and the quad were awash with the usual prep trappings. Those items mentioned above were the norm for most students. Come winter, flannels joined the mix. Some of the others wore a single pair of khakis through fall and winter, cutting their tattered trousers to shorts at first sign of spring.

We wore plain wool sweaters, often sourced from LL Bean. Most kids held religiously to flip flops.

Despite the typical sartorial leanings of the school, the garment I remember most, and believe best represents Prep Life, is the tab t-shirt.

Ubiquitous in all prep bookstores and the object of much thieving on athletic travels to other schools, the tab t-shirt has little favor in the “real world.” Above and beyond the average ringer, the tab tee has a certain formality. They eschew carefully designed graphics for the most basic screen printing. School name. Nothing more, nothing less.

I played water polo in fall. And, I dove 1-meter spring board in winter. Neither sport required more than a speedo for actual competition, but on deck attire required a certain cool. We were forced into school spirit (here oddly, the one place my Fat Beats hoody was deemed totally inappropriate by staff) and gravitated to the tab t-shirt as uniform. Better than a grey champion shirt. More refined than the hastily thought up team-specific kit. Tab t-shirts were it.

T-Shirts, being so universal, rarely have regional affiliation. Yet, I can’t see a tab tee without dreaming of New England. And, as I wasn’t a boarding student, the t-shirt certainly separated our “sort” from lesser institutions.

These are not the shirts that fill preppy dreams, but the garments that filled our prep realities. Something we all owned. Something we all probably took totally for granted.

I’ve been spending some time this week looking for tab tee blanks. My search hasn’t been overly successful. But, what it has done is reminded me that despite what I often consider an awful four years, my prep school life had some very positive points.

Funny how one garment can bring it all back.