Later, Foster would be shocked to learn that Yao was spending quite some time on the computer playing video games. "So, at some point in the evening, the three of them went out and he gave my sons a ride in his newly fitted car," Foster said.
Our sons wound up talking to him of all things video games."īy the time of their first meeting, Yao was already provided a car specifically designed for his height: 7 feet, 6 inches. "I never had the opportunity to talk geopolitics with Yao. He looked at the table and saw the kids at the end of table and associated with them," Foster said. "There I was, three or four decades older than Yao, and I was seeing him as a peer. It came as a shock to Foster at first, but he then realized that Yao was a very young person, only a few years apart from his sons. Yao instead went to the end of the table and sat between Foster's two sons. When they started to sit down around a big table in a private room, Foster assumed Yao would sit across from him and they would talk about big topics such as the history and relationship between the US and China. 1 pick in the NBA draft on June 26, 2002. So, arrangement was made for him to enter through a back door," Foster recalled. "By that time, the fact that he has been drafted was already a big story in the newspapers. The meeting was held at a symbolically Texas location - the well-known steakhouse Texas Taste off the highway I-10 west in Houston. Right after the future basketball Hall of Famer Yao got to Houston, the Rockets set up a meeting for Yao, his agent and his parents to meet with the Foster family, including his wife Lily Chen Foster and their two teenage sons. "I developed a plan, and that one particular issue gave the Rockets the confidence so they could draft him."įoster vividly remembers his first meeting with Yao. "Even before he was drafted, I worked with the Rockets on what our strategy would be to expedite the approval of the working visa petition," said Foster. When the Houston Rockets were seriously considering drafting Yao Ming for the 2002-03 National Basketball Association season, they contacted experienced immigration lawyer Charles Foster to make sure that Yao could legally play in the US - expeditiously. Caught in the middle are two young men – one will become a mega-rich superstar and hero to millions, the other a struggling athlete rejected by his homeland yet lost in America.Yao Ming with teenage brothers Zachery (right) and Anthony Foster when they first met in 2002 in Houston. Drawing on years of firsthand reporting, Larmer uncovers the disturbing truth behind China’s drive to produce Olympic champions, while also taking readers behind the scenes of America’s multibillion-dollar sports empire. In suspenseful scenes, journalist Brook Larmer details the backroom maneuverings that brought China’s first players to the NBA. Rumors of the pair of Chinese giants soon attracted the NBA and American sports companies, all eager to tap a market of 1.3 billion consumers.
#YAO MING PARENTS PRO#
By age thirteen, Yao was pulled out of sports school to join the Shanghai Sharks pro team, following in the footsteps of Wang, then the star of the People’s Liberation Army team. Their children would have no more freedom to choose their fates. Operation Yao Ming opens with the story of the two boys’ parents, basketball players brought together by Chinese officials intent on creating a generation of athletes who could bring glory to their resurgent motherland. But his journey to America–like that of his forgotten foil, 7’1" Wang Zhizhi – began long before he set foot on the world’s brightest athletic stage. The NBA’s 7’6" All-Star Yao Ming has changed the face of basketball, revitalizing a league desperate for a new hero while becoming a multimillionaire pitchman for Reebok and McDonald’s. The riveting story behind NBA giant Yao Ming, the ruthless Chinese sports machine that created him, and the East-West struggle over China’s most famous son.