#Charles barkley lin daughter tv#

There was a mutual respect between the two that is at the core of most deep and enduring friendships. Lin, who started life as a Chinese immigrant and worked hard to become a success, also related to Charles because he had overcome adversity and gotten where he was in life thanks to hard work. Listen: As an adult – and you’re too young to understand this now – all you want is your kids to be happy. And your dad was so proud of you and your brother. I’m just really, really proud of her, because I think she’s a good person. “I think it was more that he was proud,”Charles said. She wondered what these two seemingly different men could have possibly had in common, and she was blown away by his response. After the funeral, Shirley was able to speak with Charles about the unlikely friendship between a basketball superstar and an ordinary scientist from Iowa.

#Charles barkley lin daughter tv#

The crowd went silent as this larger-than-life TV personality strode up to the podium and proceeded to eulogize his friend. And standing there – drenched in sweat from the Iowa summer, towering over everyone in the room at 6 feet, 6 inches tall – was Charles Barkley.” I was talking to my childhood friend when she suddenly looked stunned. The funeral was set near the outskirts of Iowa City in a house by the woods. My dad’s favorite team, the Golden State Warriors, had won the night before.

“The funeral was the day after the NBA Finals. Yet on the day of Lin’s funeral, she realized how wrong she’d been. She never gave his friendship with Charles a second thought, assuming that the bond was tighter for Lin than the famous sports icon. Sadly, Lin passed away in 2018, and Shirley dutifully went through his phone and texted all of his friends to let them know he’d passed. While Lin never missed a chance to watch Charles on TV, he insisted on keeping his friend in the dark about his cancer diagnosis because he didn’t want to burden him. Shirley took time off from school to care for him for two years. Just one year later, Lin was diagnosed with cancerous tumors in his heart. 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, and the next thing I know, he shows up.

“For your dad to take the time to come to the funeral meant a great deal to me,”Charles later told Shirley. And the rest is history.â€Ĭharles and Lin kept in touch over text messages and visits, with Lin even visiting him on the set of “Inside the NBA.”Like any good friend, when Lin heard that Charles’s mother, Charcey Glenn had passed away, he hopped on a plane to Alabama to be there for her funeral. “And then we actually went back to the bar and just sat there and talked for another couple of hours. “It turned into a two-hour dinner,”Charles recalled. The two started chatting over drinks, which lead to dinner – and beyond. Lin was an avid basketball fan, so he was delighted to make the acquaintance of a sports legend while sitting in the bar of their hotel. Lin, a scientist for a cat litter company, had met Charles when both men were in Sacramento, California, on separate business trips. Shirley knew that her dad had met Charles, but she never really grasped that the two were good friends with a deep, personal connection that went back several years. Growing up, she remembers her father Lin Wang as a typical suburban dad who “wore striped, red polo shirts tucked into khaki shorts and got really excited about two-for-one deals.” What Shirley never fully realized, though, was that her quiet father had a very famous friend – retired NBA superstar Charles Barkley. Shirley Wang is a freelance writer who hails from a small town in Iowa.