Yao Ming was China's most notable athletic export since...well, ever. But despite crisscrossing the globe as China's most famous basketball player, he's a regular 30-something college student now.
Before he left China as a teenager with the national basketball team, and later joining the NBA, he promised his parents he'd graduate from college after his playing days were over. Eight seasons in America and multiple ankle and knee surgeries later, Yao retired--but began the quest to keep the promise to his parents. As the New York Times reported:
"On class days, Yao Ming, the 7-foot-6 retired N.B.A. center, wakes up at the crack of dawn to beat the Shanghai traffic. Carrying a lunch prepared by his wife, Ye Li, a 6-foot-3 former player in China’s professional league, Mr. Yao drives more than an hour to Jiao Tong University, where he sits through his required courses in the economics and management department. According to one Chinese news report, Mr. Yao would prefer to live in the dorms with his 20-year-old classmates, a move that would save time and energy, “but the beds are too small.”
No word on how Yao is at campus intramural sports, but let's assume he's a natural at mixed league pickup basketball.
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