For Vancouver basketball player Nathan Yu, winning a medal at the summer Universiade in China brought much more than bragging rights. It also brought the opportunity to return to his roots and entertain the possibility of playing pro basketball in his ancestral country.
After the team's silver finish at the biennial World University Games, which took place Aug. 12 to 23 in Shenzhen, China, Chinese basketball scouts approached Yu with an interest in potentially signing the 22-year-old University of British Columbia T-bird to a regional league.
"It happened so fast," Yu said. "It was more like phone numbers, than actual contracts, but it was their way of saying "OK, we found you, don't worry."
For Yu, whose brother also played for UBC and is currently coaching the men's basketball team at Capilano University, a future playing professional basketball is far from guaranteed.
"This is a tremendous boost for his future," said Kevin Hanson, team Canada coach at the interuniversity tournament, who also coaches men's basketball at UBC. "Just for him to have this opportunity to play, then have [the Games] in his second backyard-just to have that exposure was a fluke, or fate, or whatever you believe in. It was a tremendous thing to have happened and it's something that takes a little bit of luck."
Luck is right. Hanson's team Canada went into the Games in China having met for the first time a couple days prior at UBC. They had only a few days to practise.
Fluke, fate or even luck, Yu said the dynamics of the team worked surprisingly well.
"We became brothers on the court so quickly, and I now call half the guys on that team my good friends," he said. "The friendships we built were what made [the Games] so special."
What also made the Games special for Yu was that he was the only Chinese player on any team to crack the top eight at the championships.
Yu's father, Simon, flew to the Games and acted as the team's unofficial tour guide. He was particularly proud.
"He was our only Canadian fan in the stands," said the younger Yu. "You could definitely hear him among 18,000 people. I'm sure they were kind of looking at him like he's crazy."
Yu's father left Honk Kong at age 16 to attend a boarding school in Prince George, where he lives still. There he fell for basketball when he saw John Furlong-the same man who'd go on to head the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games-shoot a ball from half-court during a basketball session.
It was love at first shot. "He's just proud of me," Yu said of his father. "He was tearing up in the final game when I was playing well."
In the fall Yu is set to start as one of the team captains for the UBC T-birds men's basketball team. He expects the experience on the court in China to transfer over to UBC's new season.
For Yu, basketball, family and career seems to have found a way to blend.
"I had the time of my life playing basketball."
Twitter: @kimiyasho
