Kyle Wong Ming Liang – A Systematic Person; Co-Founder of the Huskies Club

"I can go back to a place (huskies) where I feel like a home."

Wong Ming Liang • Co-Founder of Huskies Club 2018

Interviewers: Tan Yuan Feng, Lee Tyen Wyeth

Date: Sept 3, 2020

Credits to: Lee Yi Tung

Feng: When was the first time you played captain ball?

Kyle: "I don't really remember my days playing captain ball. I think it was back when I was in Year 2, we played captain ball as a team in a small group - just our classmates Justin, Joshua, Jia Han and Shawn. Slowly, the group began to grow larger and larger. "

F: What inspired you to begin the Huskies Captain Ball Club?

K: "Well, before I systematically formed the club as an official club under the name of Department of Students’ Affair (DSA), I was a volunteer and the Vice President in the HELP Volunteer Society, and we had a strong connection with the DSA at that time. I was thinking, 'since we are going to finish our degree and go out to work, I thought why don't we build something that lasts longer?'. I mean not just stop after our graduation, but at least after a year, we could still come back and help the captain ball club - that would be great! This inspired me to create a club that would last, as long as someone manages it. That's why I wanted to build it in the first place. In fact, the club I wanted to build was different from Justin, because he may have just done it out of passion as captain ball is the sport he often plays. But for me, I wanted to build something that would last, because there is something special about me, and I wasn't like other seniors, like Justin and Joshua, because I always went back and helped. Even after I graduated, I often went back to HELP, maybe once or twice a week, because my schedule is a little bit more flexible than others. So I have free time to go back and do sports; I can enjoy seeing the seeds that I planted two or three years ago sprout. That is the motivation and intention of forming the club."

F: Tell us more about you and your team.

K: "Well, when I was playing captain ball, I was new to the sport. In my time, basketball was a very famous sport, when we first started playing captain ball, we were very small at the beginning, we just played in our own circle. Justin had strong connections with people, so he would invite all the new members, some boys and some girls to join the club, not even a club, just for games. So we only play on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, so maybe three times a week.

But at that time, we were a very small group - we had no system at all. We would usually play at HELP International School (HIS), that was at the football field. We didn't have stools, so we went to 'borrow' HIS' plastic chairs. We stood on the chairs to catch the ball; I knew it was very dangerous, we might have broken more than 10 chairs, but we weren't really affected by it.

My team (you could say that we are a team) was not a systematic team; we were just a group of friends enjoying the same sport. The number of members in this group gradually increased, until a certain time, they didn't want to play anymore, so some friends just quit, some also left in groups. Soon, there were only a few of us left in the game. It was hard because there were only a few members left; we had only four or six people on the court. It was especially difficult to play because we needed catchers and defenders, which is difficult to play as the only person. We had a lot of members, around 20 or 25 years old, who would usually join games to play together, but one day, I don't know if it was because of exams or because they wanted to find something new, they quit and stopped joining the games.

That's why I want to build a systematic club of regular members who loved joining the games and would spend at least a day or more playing games each week. We wouldn't have to worry about not having enough people. Now, we have too many people to worry about! It's painful for fewer people, and if we can have more games for more people, it means your club is growing. But when there is a shortage of players, I think we need to build something systematic to allow the club to grow."

F: What were some of the difficulties you faced in the process of forming the club?

K: "Well, just now I mentioned that Justin took the initiative to go to DSA, prepare the club registration form and submit the form. But not sure why DSA didn't want to approve Justin's proposal, maybe it was because he didn't do enough prayers that day or that month, that's why DSA rejected the proposal. Because I ran a lot of errands for DSA, and after Justin graduated, because we all were supposed to be in the same semester, but I took a semester off because I wanted to do something different. At that time, I organized a camp for the Taekwondo club, and I was very busy. I didn't want distract myself with too many things. So, I deferred one semester so that I could have more time to do my own things.

If you want to do a lot of activities or start a club, you must have a good connection with DSA. So at that time, I was the one who was the closest person to them. They always treat me like a free labor, because they liked me and my partner a lot - partner as in the President of the HELP Volunteer Society. So, when you get a job when your school needs help with something or with an event. For example, they need lots of volunteers to come together and help distribute water during the Unity Run events. We have a good relationship with them, so we use that relationship to measure the difficulties we face in setting up the club. After that, we set up a club, managed and submitted all the documents. The next day was recruitment day. The day before JCSD, we started the club, and I asked them where they wanted to put our booth. So, you see club formation and recruiting is just a day after another. Our time was super super packed as we have to do a lot of preparations and planning stuffs.

We ran into some extra problems, that is we don't have a fixed list of members or committees. So, we randomly added members like Jackson and Bryan who often join in games. We put them as the temporary committees on the list and we didn't ask them to commit to the recruitment drive. We just want to implement the first level of management. Second, we faced a major issue which is the manpower aspect. So Olivia and I planned how to show and attract people to join the club. It's amazing how so many people were interested by just standing at our booth for at least 3 or 4 hours.

People who you would have probably played with, for example, JB, Kelly, Jia Wen and Choco, they were the first batch of members that I recruited at the first ever recruitment drive of the club. It was interesting how I got them to join the club. I bought a packet of Coca-Cola candy and put them in a tong, and I said, 'Hey bro, you want some free candy? Come, come, come, it's free, you just write your name here, and they will feel very happy, because it was those Cola candies, then we have a lot of members. After that, it was the difficulty I faced when forming the club between the management side, the manpower side and the other acquired sides. When we have too many members, we don't know if there will be enough balls and stools for all the members to play or not. So, there's the logistics part, one of the difficult things. But right now, I see you're doing a good job. Now, you have different jobs. But in the past, we didn't have the system for everything we did.

F: What specifically captain ball out of all sports?

K: "All right, captain ball, both guys and girls are welcomed. Unlike other sports like athletics, you guys can train together, but when it comes to real competition, guys run with guys, girls run with girls la, you cannot join or compete together, right or not? Most of the time, we see guys playing one sport, maybe they'll form their own team, and girls will play another sport, which is very gender-stereotype. But in captain ball right, if you realized, the rules and regulations of the game is very special, because for guys, if you score, you get one point; for girls when they score, you score two points. So you see, there's this very interesting mechanism in captain ball. It encourages you to have a balance between guys and girls. In essence, you make connections with different people, and you don't make a specific gender to be dominating. Imagine if captain ball didn't have this scoring system that is so special, then of course, no girls will come and play captain ball, it will be all guys, and all the guys could already have had a basketball basis, then captain ball club will surely become another basketball club, it's not even captain ball already. If you ask this right, I think this is the most interesting thing about captain ball, it infused both netball and Frisbee into one sport, and it encourages both genders to join as a team, and to perform in a competitive way, this is how I see it."

F: Did you initially set any goals/expectations for the future of the club?

K: "Interestingly, probably not so much on the passion aspect, or what expectations I have for you guys to do. But for me, I prefer something more permanent. Imagine that I'm 24 now, maybe six years from now, I can still enjoy going back to the captain ball club and play, because I know that I can go back to a place that raised me. This is a goal that I want to establish. So, I can see from a non-systematic recruitment drive to systematic recruitment drive and then training and so on. Then a bonding trip to Port Dickson was organized by the committees. Even little things like these will contribute to what I once said, 'If you want to build more long-lasting, you have to add more elements.' When you have more directions, you will have more elements. With more directions, the next generation can choose what direction they want. For me right, clubs and societies in universities are meant to build connections. To be honest, now I regretted, because I should have joined more clubs, which means that I need more genuine connections. So I think the idea you guys are doing now is fantastic, to build connections in a more versatile and variety kind of style, and to let the future generation to decide which path do they want to take on, and it's an endless journey as you guys will need to keep improving and improving in order to make it long-lasting, so this is the expectation I have for the club, and for other clubs to have the same mindset as well. "

F: Were there any regrets that you wish you could change ever since you founded the club, other than what you've mentioned - to have joined more clubs and built genuine connections?

K: "This is a hard question to answer, because if you ask me why, I would say that Justin is good at teaching and training, and handling things on the field. But for me, I prefer a more systematic and managerial approach, so that things can grow in a healthier way. So, if there are any regrets, I would say that we should have started this systematic approach earlier. I won't say it's not a regret, but it's something we should consider. But seriously, I don't regret anything at all."

Tyen Wyeth: What type of opinions will clash between you and Justin and Jia Han?

K: "I don't remember though, that's the funny thing. Most of the time, Justin and Jia Han will take the main role in handling the club. I was just there to enjoy the club and the games, but after they've graduated, I thought, 'oh my God, things are going through a hard time, so I needed to do something about it.' Since there is something I can help, and since they've graduated, busy looking for jobs, and might not have enough time to come back to HELP. So why not, I do something different, which is to form the club. I would say that there's no clash in between the three of us. So they had something before they graduated, so I took it over, fixed it, and implemented them. I think I don't see any clash between us, but maybe between Justin and Jia Han, but not so much for me, because like what I've said, if they want to take charge, I'll let them take charge, I just enjoy my game. At that time when they left, you can see that the club was going through a hard period since no one was taking charge of the club, and can see people scattering around as no one was there to stand in front of the crowd to lead and give instructions, but that's not how a club should look like. You should have a leader to lead the club, so that was when I stepped in. However, I knew that I'm in my Year 3 Semester 4, I don't really want to involve in sports or club management anymore, because I know even if I sign up and be involved, I won't have the time to commit, so in fact, I rather be a so called advisor, or a supporter, or someone who is there to guide. So at that time, my role was an advisor to Ping, Olivia, Jackson and Bryan."