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Said Jaylin Williams, 22, to Andscape: “I know it and respect it. I want to learn more about it. I want to go to Vietnam one day. I wouldn’t say I’m super connected to it, but I want to get more into that side. … “I’m getting a lot of support. I’m very appreciative of it.”
Thousands of Vietnamese refugees actually settled in Oklahoma City after the fall of Saigon in 1975. There are about 30,000 Oklahomans who have Vietnamese roots, according to a story about the Vietnamese Asian community in 2023 by The Oklahoman newspaper. It is not uncommon for Vietnamese and Asian fans to attend Thunder games wearing Jaylin Williams jerseys and for them to approach her and her son for pictures and autographs, Linda Williams said. “The Vietnamese community here has been so gracious,” Linda Williams said. “They call me family here. [Season-ticket holder] Long Tran calls me Cuz when he sees me. You see so many Vietnamese fans with Jaylin’s jersey on. They reach out to him on Instagram. And here, they take selfies with me. It’s been really delightful to be with the fan base here.”
After growing up in a diverse section of the country, Tatum, the son of a Chinese mom who grew up in Vietnam and a Jamaican dad, is charged with overseeing the NBA’s international growth, partnerships and some of the league’s top-priority social justice initiatives. For the past 18 months, he did it while navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. “To get through the bubble and to get through all the social unrest and social justice issues and racial inequality issues that we dealt with during that time and then to play an entire another season and to be here in the 2021-22, our 75th anniversary season, required a lot of teamwork and a lot of communication,” Tatum said. “The frequency of that communication increased substantially during that time. There’s been this cooperative spirit amongst all those involved to keep this league moving forward.
Willie Brown, who turns 79 in August, did one tour in Vietnam with the Marines in 1963. Afterward, he worked as a truck driver, but really just used that job as an entryway to his true love: boxing. He dreamed of becoming a professional fighter but worried he could not make it a living. So as he crisscrossed the Midwest and the East Coast driving his truck, he offered his services as a sparring partner wherever he went. Over time, he said, he developed a reputation as a reliable opponent for big boxers training for big fights. He said he sparred against Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, and Sonny Liston, among others.
“I feel very encouraged. We've got a generation that's grown up with these school shootings and mass shootings and they're fed up. Historically, it's a young generation that has to initiate change. You think about the Vietnam war. “All the old white guys who kept sending the troops over to fight this ridiculous war, it was all the young people who protested, had to make change, communicate. It's the young people in the country now who are going to create the change we need in terms of how we handle gun violence and how we do our best to curb it. It's amazing to watch.”
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After traveling to China to participate in clinics last year, Cauley-Stein made his return to the country following a brief trip to Vietnam earlier this summer. Alongside Carter, WCS was invited to Yao Ming’s annual charity game over the weekend in an effort to raise money for the Hall-of-Famer’s longtime charity. Yao started the fund in 2008 after a massive earthquake struck the Sichuan Province in southwestern China hoping to support sports and education in the region.
NO MATTER HOW far away from home he felt in the streets of Vietnam, Rabedeaux believed he would coach again in the United States. This belief sustained him, from his first moments in Saigon. He'd talk about it, to the other coaches, or at night in his first apartment with his roommate, journeyman center Jonathan Jones, in the honest moments before sleep. Rabedeaux was waiting on Sampson to save him. "Once Kelvin got a job," Jones says, "Rab was gonna be on the first thing smoking." Kelvin already had rescued Rab once before -- from the hoops wasteland of an obscure Division III school -- making him part of his staff at Washington State in 1989. Basketball was Rabedeaux's vice; he barely drank, had never smoked pot or cigarettes. Since his adolescence in Wisconsin, he'd searched in locker rooms for the family he'd wanted since his split apart, and with Sampson, he found it. His compulsiveness, always a handicap, found a purpose; he arrived at Sampson's door broken, and this new job made him whole.
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