Almighty Coach

Baojun Sha was silent, while Guodong Li also couldn’t find an excuse to object, so all he could do was sulk in his chair.

Weidong Chu had been totally impressed by Dai Li’s plan. Dai Li’s contribution in the championship of the relay team at the Asian Games had wiped out any last doubts in Weidong Chu’s mind.

So, the sprint team’s plan to focus on the relay was finalized. Weidong Chu asked Dai Li to submit a detailed plan to the track and field team.

Then, the meeting began to discuss other events. However, Baojun Sha, Hua Liu, and Guodong Li were distracted, like cats on hot brick.

The meeting lasted for over four hours and was finished after noon. All the participants left the meeting room, many of whom shuffled directly to the cafeteria.

"Li, wait for me!" someone called from behind Guodong Li; he turned around and found Baojun Sha and Hua Liu were walking towards him rapidly.

"Hey, Sha!" Guodong Li looked at Baojun Sha ironically, and said, "I remember you said Kun Shen was too old to be chosen by Dai Li, right? Now Dai Li has worked out a plan of relay training that requires four athletes. Besides Kun Shen, Yueyang Zhu, and Tingshan Chen, he still needs one more athlete!"

"Li, it’s not a good time to say that." Hua Liu acted as peacemaker and said, "We should prepare a countermeasure. We can’t let Dai Li just take our painstakingly cultivated athletes!"

"Are you going to find a countermeasure now? Isn’t it too late? His plan to focus on the relay race was finalized just now in the meeting." Guodong Li shook his head disdainfully. "Hindsight is meaningless. I suggest you turn to Dai Li; maybe you could be his underlings!"

"Li, what do you mean?" Hua Liu was angry.

"It’s okay, Hua Liu, Li doesn’t want to cooperate with us. Let’s find someone else. In the case that Tingshan Chen is chosen by Dai Li, it’s not our business. We just need to protect Kun Shan and Yueyang Zhu from being chosen by Dai Li." Baojun Sha pulled Hua Li and pretended to leave.

Guodong Li also knew that Baojun Sha was scheming and full of ideas. By now, Baojun Sha should have worked out a method to cope with Dai Li.

"Wait!" Guodong Li stopped them immediately, then walked to them and asked, "Sha, do you have an idea?"

"Well, Li, are you interested now?" Baojun Sha seemed to have long expected Guodong Li’s reaction.

Guodong Li nodded, "Sha, last night it was me who suggested we form an alliance."

"Okay then. Let’s talk while we’re walking." Baojun Sha waved his hand, and the three of them walked to the cafeteria.

The three of them were walking along the road. When there was no one around them, Baojun Sha said, "The plan to focus on the relay raised by Dai Li was finalized in the meeting, which is a command and can’t be changed by ordinary coaches like us."

"Then what should we do? Just let Dai Li grab our athletes?" Guodong Li asked eagerly.

"That won’t happen. The decision made in the meeting, although it can’t be changed by us, can be changed by the athletes." Baojun Sha gave a cheeky grin, and continued, "Dai Li is going to choose athletes for the relay team, right? His efforts will be in vain as long as our athletes refuse to follow him."

"It’s a decision made by the track and field team that was approved by Coach Chu. Could our athletes reject the plan? You can’t fight the city hall!" Guodong Li asked with knitted brows.

"An objection from one or two athletes is definitely not enough. What about an objection from a lot of athletes? There’s strength in numbers. You can’t fight the city hall alone; two people are still no match for them. If you had ten thousand people, what do you think the result would be?"

"Sha, I understand your plan now. Your plan is to persuade more athletes to reject the relay training, right?" Guodong Li gasped, "In this way, the athletes will be punished! You should know the consequences if an athlete rejects an arrangement from a higher-up. It could ruin the professional career of an athlete."

"Don’t forget, the law can’t be enforced when everyone is an offender." Baojun Sha continued, "Once again, there’s strength in numbers. If a lot of athletes reject the relay team, could the track and field team punish all of them? I guess they would consider whether their decision to focus on the relay is worth it at that time, and we still have a justifiable argument."

"What’s the justifiable argument?" Guodong Li asked immediately.

"Dai Li’s plan is to focus on the relay race, right? He also mentioned a precondition, which is to give up individual events. Isn’t it a pretty good reason? After painstaking training, it’s normal that all athletes want to accomplish achievements in the individual events," Baojun Sha continued.

Guodong Li didn’t speak, seemingly considering Baojun Sha’s suggestion.

Hua Liu said, "I think Sha’s method is feasible. From the aspect of the athletes, they definitely want to have good results in individual events. They may not be willing to participate in the relay race."

"We should persuade more athletes to join our plan. Besides the athletes under our management, we should also have other athletes whose levels are high join us. We should create some chaos, the more chaotic, the better." Baojun Sha added.

Finally, Guodong Li nodded, "Okay, let’s proceed as you said! Later, we should go separately to talk to the athletes."

...

Dai Li was busy preparing his report until three in the morning, but finally, he managed to list the training plan for the relay race in a detailed report.

On the morning of the second day, the report was placed on Weidong Chu’s desk.

After reading through the training plan carefully, Weidong Chu smiled satisfactorily.

"This is a quite a good training plan, integrated with the high level training methods of the national team and the consideration of the actual situation of our team." As Weidong Chu spoke, he picked up a document and handed it to Dai Li. "I have approved the athlete selection plan for the relay team. Now all athletes of the sprint team are available for you to choose."

"Thank you, Coach!" Dai Li took the document and prepared to select athletes at the training ground.

The phone rang right at that moment. Weidong Chu picked up the phone and said, "Hello, this is Weidong Chu... What?"

Weidong Chu suddenly became solemn. He couldn’t help glancinging at Dai Li, who was standing in front of him.

Dai Li noticed that the trouble seemed to be related to him.

"Okay, now I see. Just gather them in the meeting room, I’ll come over later." Weidong Chu hung up the phone and lifted his head, then said, "Li, for the athlete selection, you have to wait a moment."

"What’s wrong?" Dai Li asked.

"Some athletes don’t want give up their individual events, and there’s backlash against the relay team. I’ll go and check it out." As Weidong Chu said this, he stood up and got ready to go.

An ominous foreboding suddenly flashed across Dai Li’s mind.

...

Eleven athletes were gathered in the meeting room, all sprinters on the sprint team with relatively high athletic abilities.

"Coach Chu, I heard that athletes chosen to join the relay team have to focus on the relay alone and give up their individual events. Is that true? I’ll never join the relay team if I’m asked to give up my individual event," Tingshan Chen said.

"Coach Chu, this year I am already twenty four. In two years, my physical condition will start to decline, so I won’t have opportunity to take part in the next National Games. I’ve been preparing for this National Games for a long time. I just want to give it my best shot. I don’t want to join the relay team." Kun Shen’s voice was permeated with anxiety.

"Coach Chu, the opportunity to attend the National Games is quite rare. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for several years. I failed to attend the last National Games, so I really don’t want to miss this one. As for my performance in the 100m sprint, I’m the best on the sprint team. If I’m asked to give up the 100m sprint and focus on the relay race, I won’t obey the order." Yueyang Zhu said stubbornly.

The rest of the sprinters also expressed similar opinions that they didn’t want to give up their individual events to focus on the relay race.

With knitted brows, Weidong Chu hadn’t expected the decision to focus on the relay race would be rejected by so many athletes.

An objection from one or two athletes was easy to handle, but now eleven backbone sprinters of the track team were rejecting the plan. Almost all of them were strong enough to attend the qualification round of the National Games.

Now Weidong Chu had to reconsider the decision to focus on the relay race cemented at the meeting the day before.

"It’s normal that the athletes don’t want to give up their individual events after so many years of hard training. Now, the athletes have expressed their objection. I guess some coaches also have similar feelings, but they didn’t point it out for fear of hurting my feelings. I underestimated this issue. I should organize a meeting again to discuss it," Weidong Chu thought.

...

The sprinters’ protest to Weidong Chu was soon spread throughout the whole track and field team. Dai Li also heard about the issue.

Due to this, Weidong Chu had to organize the coaches of the sprint team to discuss this issue in another meeting.

In the meeting room, Weidong Chu held up Dai Li’s training plan and said, "This is the training plan for the relay race, prepared by Coach Li. I have read through it, and it’s pretty good, and feasible. I think we should give it a try. However, the situation we are facing now is that some athletes are refusing to join the relay team and give up their individual events."

"Coach, should we try to persuade the athletes to accept this plan?" someone said.

"Persuade them? I’m afraid that’s not an easy task. Athletes nowadays are different from athletes in the past. You could talk about the big picture, the team, and contribution to athletes in the past. However, most athletes nowadays are the only child in their family. They only care about themselves. It’s useless to persuade them by talking about the team and contributing!" said Guodong Li, who was, again, the first one to bring up this issue.

All the participants had long discovered that Guodong Li was a naysayer.

"What Coach Guodong Li said is very reasonable. I’m also the only child of my family, so I can understand their feelings." Dai Li laughed, then said, "Coach Guodong Li has such a good understanding of our athletes that I guess he must have found the solution. Just say it, so that I can learn from you."

Guodong Li was dumbfounded immediately. All he had meant to do was pick on Dai Li, so it was impossible for him to prepare a reply.

Others also didn’t expect that Dai Li could launch a counterattack against Guodong Li in such a short time, so everyone was looking at Guodong Li with a faint smile on face, waiting for his response.

It was lucky for Guodong Li that Baojun Sha stood up to rescue him. Although they didn’t get along well with each other normally, now they were allied and had a common enemy. Both of them were in the same boat, so Baojun Sha had to speak for Guodong Li.

Baojun Sha said, "Coach, I have a suggestion. The athletes who rejected the relay race are worried about their individual events. How about just cancelling this restriction, and just as before, athletes can take part in their individual events and also participate in the relay race. In this way, the athletes won’t reject the relay race."

"Then what should we do for training? Should the athletes be trained for individual events or the relay?" Dai Li asked immediately.

"Since they’ll participate in individual events and the relay, they should have the training of their individual events and the relay at the same time. We’ve also done this before," Baojun Sha said with a smile.

Dai Li shook his head slightly. The sprinters on the track and field team weren’t strong enough. If they were distracted by the training of their individual events, their performance in the relay race wouldn’t realize a remarkable improvement. Also, Dai Li’s plan of winning a gold medal in the National Games would be ruined.

Weidong Chu also knew Baojun Sha’s so-called "suggestion" would do nothing but ruin the plan, so he asked, "Does anyone else have any good suggestions?"

The rest of the coaches either shook their heads or kept silent. The meeting room grew quiet immediately.

Weidong Chu became more and more solemn. He knew Dai Li’s plan could help Hanbei Province Track and Field Team accomplish a good achievement at the National Games, but the coaches of the sprint team were uncooperative and even undermining Dai Li’s plan.

As the head coach of Hanbei Province Track and Field Team, Weidong Chu was smart enough to know that Dai Li’s plan would definitely go against some people’s interests. The naysayer Guodong Li and the unknowledgable Baojun Sha had clinched Weidong Chu’s judgment.

"Coach, I also have an idea," Dai Li said suddenly.

Everyone in the meeting room fixed their eyes on Dai Li. They knew Dai Li was planning to attack.

Dai Li said, "For the relay race, the teamwork among the athletes is crucial. A gap of 0.1 seconds could be filled with a perfect baton exchange, so I don’t have strict requirements upon the athlete’s level. Since some sprinters rejected my plan, how about just letting the athletes sign up voluntarily? Then, I’ll choose five or six athletes from the applicants to build the relay team.

"I’ll stick to this training plan. Once an athlete joins the relay team, they must give up their individual event and focus on the training for the relay race. We should tell the athletes about this in advance."

Weidong Chu stared at Dai Li in amazement. It seemed to Weidong Chu that Dai Li had made the perfect compromise.

"Li, our athletes aren’t as strong as athletes of other provincial teams. If you don’t select athletes whose levels are higher, our performance in the National Games might be ruined," Weidong Chu reminded him.

"Just because our athletes aren’t strong enough doesn’t mean they need more training. What I need are athletes who want to focus their stamina on the relay race." Dai Li smiled confidently, then he continued, saying, "However, I have to point out that once our relay team is established, the lineup will be fixed for the qualification round, the official competition, and even the final race at the National Games. No lineup changes will be permitted."

After hearing what Dai Li said, Baojun Sha, and Guodong Li couldn’t help making an eye contact. What Dai Li intended was to destroy the other athletes’ chances to join the relay team. If an athlete didn’t sign up, or wasn’t selected by Dai Li after signing up, this athlete was doomed to have no opportunity to participate in the 4x100m relay at this National Games.

"This Dai Li indeed has character. He’s pushing the athletes to make the choice between individual events and the relay race. However, he should first pray that his team is able to enter the official competition!" Baojun Sha thought triumphantly.