![]() ![]() "I was just sitting at the bar," Barkley said. "So, I just went to say hi and take a picture with him," my dad said. "I was in Sacramento speaking at a charity event," Barkley said. "I was on a business trip," my dad said, "and stayed in one of the hotels and was walking in the lobby, and I saw Charles Barkley." "It was, like, one of the most random things," Barkley recalled with a laugh. I told my dad the conversation seemed pretty one-sided and handed the phone back.Īs I talked about the relationship with more and more people, I began to think that either my dad was one of the luckiest basketball fans ever - or this whole thing was an elaborate joke, a " Dinner For Schmucks"-type situation. Their texts were mostly messages from my dad that ended with an excessive number of exclamation points. But again, as a good millennial, I knew that people have very loose definitions of the word "friend."Ībout two years ago, I asked my dad if I could see their texts. He seemed pretty famous - and definitely not like anyone who would be friends with my dad. Like a good millennial, I Googled Charles Barkley. The first time my dad told the story, I didn’t pretend to know who this person was. Whenever we attended dinner parties, my dad would talk about his friend Charles Barkley. "Well, yeah, he's a top-50 player in the history of the NBA," he said. My dad told me that he knew about Barkley long before he met him. "You know, has a big personality," my dad, Lin Wang, told me last year, when I recorded him talking about Barkley. I said, 'That’s my boy, Lin.' They’re, like, 'How do you know him?' I said, 'It’s a long story.' " Everybody’s like, 'Who’s the Asian dude over there?' I just started laughing. ![]() "You know, it was obviously a very difficult time," Barkley told me recently. Charles Barkley and Lin Wang (Courtesy Shirley Wang) In short, he was everyone’s suburban dad. He worked as a cat litter scientist in Muscatine, Iowa. Here’s what I can tell you about him: He wore striped, red polo shirts tucked into khaki shorts and got really excited about two-for-one deals. He wasn’t a basketball player, he wasn’t a sports figure, and he wasn’t from Barkley’s hometown. ![]() But there was also an unexpected guest.īarkley’s friends couldn’t quite place him. When Charles Barkley's mother, Charcey Glenn, passed away in June 2015, Barkley's hometown of Leeds, Alabama, came to the funeral to pay respects. (Editor's note: Check out an update from reporter Shirley Wang.) However, with mounting criminal cases and a string of racially insensitive comments, it’s unlikely that he will win over all Black voters as the 2024 election inches closer.This story was re-broadcast on September 19, 2020 as part of The Best Of Only A Game. Trump has been hitting the campaign trail hard in an effort to earn the Black vote. To insult Black people who have been discriminated against all these years, to put them in the same category. He’s been President of the United States. While Barkley didn’t have much to say about the new shoe, the mugshot bothered him to the point of risking jail time, and he maintains that Black people present during Trump’s speech about his mugshot should have left immediately. Fellow Republicans have praised the move as a way to “connect” with Black Americans. He recently debuted his $399 Never Surrender High Top Sneaker at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia. Sadly, this was not the only racist stereotype that Trump is trying to capitalize off of. You know who embraced it more than anyone else? The Black population,” the former president declared at the Black Conservative Federation’s annual Honors Gala in South Carolina. “When I did the mugshot in Atlanta, that mug shot is No. His comments, while humorous, arrived days after Trump spoke about how his mugshot was increasing his popularity among Black voters. ![]()
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