NFL expects American football 'Yao Ming'
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-02-05 09:18

Tagliabue said he probably will never live to see American football become a global game, but is satisfied that it has become solidly international.

"In China, the challenges are unique but the opportunity is unique," Tagliabue said. "This will be a sport with global participation. People from all backgrounds can play this game.

"The player development piece to me is the next big step. Then it will start really with its own momentum.

"We need the grass roots to develop players and coaches. That can't be imposed by the United States. It has to come from the bottom up. You have to look at a three or four decade timeline."

Zou Marketing, which handles NFL promotion in China, helped establish US flag football programs in Beijing and Shanghai.

"The NFL has done things the right way," Lewis said. "They haven't made the ethno-centric mistake of saying, 'We're American. We're the best.' It's helping the Chinese kids move up. They are on the way.

"I've never seen in the history of the world such a movement from the rural farmland to the city. What they are doing in growing their cities is unprecedented. And they are allowing outsiders to come in and share things like (American) football."

Lewis, 34, watched a Thailand schoolboy squad beat an American squad to win the 2005 flag football crown in China after struggling the year before but dedicating time before and after school every day for a year to improvement.

"They had this one receiver. He was the next Jerry Rice," Lewis said. "He really played well."

Lewis summed up the challenge of becoming the NFL's first Asian star with his favorite Chinese proverb.

"If you are going to play in the NFL, it's going to be tough to get there," he said. "But 'True gold does not fear the refiner's fire.'"