The News
Friday 01 of November 2024

A tender tale: Charles Barkley and a Chinese chemist


FILE - In this May 2, 2015, file photo, Charles Barkley joins the crowd before the start of the world welterweight championship bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas. Emmy award-winning broadcaster Ernie Johnson delivers a behind-the-scenes look at friend and “Inside the NBA” colleague Charles Barkley in the latest PodcastOne Sports Now episode. (AP Photo/John Locher, File),FILE - In this May 2, 2015, file photo, Charles Barkley joins the crowd before the start of the world welterweight championship bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas. Emmy award-winning broadcaster Ernie Johnson delivers a behind-the-scenes look at friend and “Inside the NBA” colleague Charles Barkley in the latest PodcastOne Sports Now episode. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)
FILE - In this May 2, 2015, file photo, Charles Barkley joins the crowd before the start of the world welterweight championship bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas. Emmy award-winning broadcaster Ernie Johnson delivers a behind-the-scenes look at friend and “Inside the NBA” colleague Charles Barkley in the latest PodcastOne Sports Now episode. (AP Photo/John Locher, File),FILE - In this May 2, 2015, file photo, Charles Barkley joins the crowd before the start of the world welterweight championship bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas. Emmy award-winning broadcaster Ernie Johnson delivers a behind-the-scenes look at friend and “Inside the NBA” colleague Charles Barkley in the latest PodcastOne Sports Now episode. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Emmy award-winning broadcaster Ernie Johnson delivers a behind-the-scenes look at friend and “Inside the NBA” colleague Charles Barkley in the latest PodcastOne Sports Now episode.

Johnson joins hosts Jim Litke and Tim Dahlberg to discuss a story that went viral on the internet: the friendship between former NBA star Barkley and Chinese immigrant Lin Wang, who shrugged off his own considerable achievements by calling himself “a cat-litter scientist.”

Johnson said his father, broadcaster Ernie Johnson, Sr., provided valuable lessons about the platform a high-profile TV job provided, “how to look out at the world from that vantage point and see where you can help.

“And this,” Johnson added about a friendship that touched two families in unlikely ways, “is a perfect example of that.”

Also on the show: NFL writer Barry Wilner.