Xinhua News Agency, Hangzhou, December 15 (Reporter Wang Jingyu, Xia Liang) At the opening ceremony of the 2024 Tsai Chongxin Basketball Scholarship Training Camp held on the morning of the 15th, Yao Ming, chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association, encouraged the young players participating in the training camp and said: It is possible to learn Xi and play ball.
Yao Ming said that when he was 13 years old, his mother sent him to play basketball on the sports team. Mom asked him to promise one thing, that is, no matter how well he played basketball, he would make up for the homework he had missed after retiring. It was because of a promise to his mother that Yao Ming went to study at Shanghai Jiao Tong University after retiring from the army, and it took him 7 years to complete his undergraduate studies.
After telling this little story, Yao Ming told the young players that they must not forget to learn Xi while playing, and it is possible to learn Xi and play ball, and only by being excellent in character and learning can they create a better way for their future.
The Tsai Chongxin Basketball Scholarship is a public welfare project, which was formerly known as the "Chinese Basketball Association Elite Program" launched in 2019. The program is open to young people from all over the country who are interested in becoming outstanding basketball players to study in boarding high schools in the United States, and provides comprehensive scholarships including tuition and housing fees during the study period until they graduate from high school.
So far, the program has sponsored a total of 15 students to Xi in the United States. Among them, the first batch of students who went to the United States in 2019, Wang Furui and Li Xinyi, won full basketball scholarships from Northwestern University and Manhattan College, respectively. Xun Sinan, Class of 2022, has received full basketball scholarship invitations from several universities such as the University of Alabama. This year, Xun Sinan was also selected for the U16 national men's basketball youth training team, and participated in the 2023 FIBA U16 Asian Championship in Qatar with the team, becoming the "cap king" of the event.
This training camp is to select the 2024 class of overseas students, and former Chinese men's basketball head coach Wang Fei serves as the head coach of the training camp. After the closed training and selection, the expert review team will discuss and evaluate the overall performance of the candidates, and the final list will be announced in April 2024. (ENDS).