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.) Currently he works in the program “Inside the NBA”.This story was re-broadcast on September 19, 2020 as part of The Best Of Only A Game. After retirement he continued his career as a sports analyst on TNT. In 1984 he was drafted by Philadelphia 76ers.ĭuring the years of his career Charles performed for Phoenix Suns and Houston Rockets. “In spite of his stature, Charles moves like a wind”, his first coach told.īarkley continued playing, while studying at Auburn University. At first nobody paid attention to a stout teenager, but then he defeated Bobby Lee Hurt, the most scouted player in Alabama, and it was his winning ticket. Charles attended Leeds High School and played for the school basketball team. Charles suffered from extra weight in his early years, but he put lots of efforts to cope with this problem. The childhood of a future basketball star was very poor. He was raised by a single mother together with his two brothers. In 2006 he was included in Basketball Hall of Fame.Ĭharles Wade was born in 1963 in Leeds, AL. He told that he regretted he wasn’t close with his sons with Charcey Glenn in their early years.įans know him as a super-talented athlete, who played for NBA during 16 years and retired in 2000 with a string of honors and titles, such as All-Star MVP, which he got at the age of 18, Most Valuable Player – at the age of 20 etc. Frank Barkley gave an interview to Roy Firestone, the talk show host. And he came, when the fuss around his talented son had already started.Īt first Charles couldn’t accept his father into his life again. And that hurt the boy, who needed the father during the years of his poor childhood. He came to Charles Barkley, when his son had already become a sports star. From that time he didn’t support his ex-wife and sons financially, and Barkley family was very poor.įrank re-married and spent all his time and money for his new spouse and kids. In fact, Frank left the family, when Charles was a kid. Surely, you’ve heard numerous times from famous sportsmen‘s, that their dads introduced them to a certain kind of sports and coached them on a regular basis.īut in case of Frank and Charles Barkley, they couldn’t boast with long hours of sports workouts, which they spent together. The father plays an important part in life of almost each athlete. The woman was involved into a number of charity organizations.Ĭharcey passed away peacefully in her big house in Leeds, surrounded by her sons, daughters-in-law and 6 granddaughters. She did a lot of kind good things during the years of her life. It was she, who gave a birth a legendary basketball player and TNT sports analytic Charles Barkley. The couple gave a birth to 4 sons, and two of them preceded Charcey in death. In her 20s she met Frank Barkley and married him. The woman, who is remembered by her friends as an easy-going and kind person, was born in 1942 in the family of Charles Gaiter and Johnnie Mickens. She spent not too long but conscious life, full of great events. The reason of her death was kidney disease. Charcey Glenn died in 2015 at the age of 73.
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