The Chinese National Youth Basketball Team is currently training in the United States, but its head coach Fan Bin is not with the team. His absence from the squad is due to a letter written by the team players. The letter was carried with their bloody fingerprints, pleading for a coaching change, before the team's trip to the US.

Everything started with a joint letter with bloody fingerprints.

"We are all members of the Chinese National Youth Team and we cannot bear our coach Fan Bin any more. For the past three years, he has repeatedly insulted and beat us. We plead to the chairman of the China National Basketball Association to make a coaching change."

Fan Bin is currently away from the team, as he is serving as an assistant coach for the Chinese National Team. He has declined to comment on the matter.

"It is not the right time to talk about it."

Following the letter, the Chinese Basketball Association gave an announcement.

Li Jinsheng, Vice Chairman of Chinese National Basketball Association said "The incident has been verified. It happened on April 1st, just before the team's trip to the United States. We are investigating the event. The coach was not behaving properly in the areas of team management and education, and he became violent. He was largely responsible for the event. But the players have also taken extreme actions. To ease the conflict, we have decided to suspend Fan Bin from the position for an indefinite period."

The crooked-written letter by the 13 players against the coach has caused a heated debate on whether traditional training in a patriarchal manner should be allowed to continue.

Lasting for years, the traditional mode emphasizes discipline and hard work, and has yielded tremendous results for Chinese sports teams so far. Many athletes born in the '70s and '80s, including some star players, also received insults and beatings from coaches.

But today, many athletes, born in the '90s, reject this disciplinarian approach, likely due to the fact their lives and training facilities have seen great improvements from their predecessors. And most of today's Chinese athletes are playing sports out of passion, instead of a choice made to achieve wealth or success, which was the case for most of the previous athletes.

With this progress in social development, the training approach should also be modernized, even if coaches had good intentions with their disciplinarian approach. And the event may serve as a wake up call for China to reflect on its traditional training approach.

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