The success of Lang Ping in coaching the US team is quite unique, says an article in China Youth Daily. The following is an excerpt:

Lang Ping, former Chinese volleyball star and now the head coach of the US national women's volleyball team, is an outstanding volleyball coach and the wonder she created should go into the history of volleyball.

Lang headed the US team into the Olympic final and the team was said to be not professional three years ago when she started coaching it. What Lang did is like what Guus Hiddink, a Dutch, did to lead South Korea to a 4th place finish in the 2002 FIFA World Cup and what Kim Changbo, a South Korean, did to bring China's women's hockey team to the Beijing Olympic final.

As a successful coach in a foreign country, Lang shares many things in common with the above two - they are all fully respected by team members, the players are all trained to endure tougher competitions and have stronger wills. But Lang is still different from the two.

Both the soccer team coached by Hiddink and the hockey team headed by Kim Changbo are composed of professionals and receive strict training, seven to eight training hours per day.

But the unprofessional team led by Lang is different: some members have classes to attend, some have to go to work. So the training time per day is only two to three hours. At the outset, Lang had to instruct them the basic skills.

Therefore, few people, especially Chinese in the volleyball circle who are accustomed to the conventionally professional training, believed that the US team would make any breakthrough in the Beijing Olympics.

It is said that Lang was also in trouble at the beginning. But soon after, she regained her confidence since she knew all the members attended the training out of pure interest and all of them were college graduates and thus had a strong learning ability.

Lang changed the US team within three years and it looks like a myth for many, including a former China national team player. She lamented that the US team only gets trained two to three hours per day while China team gets trained seven to eight hours per day

The US team has left the audience with the impression that it has the spirit of fighting relentlessly, just like the former China national team at its peak in the 1980s. Many believe that this spirit is inculcated by Lang's coaching and learned by the US team.