I got back a little while ago from the Yao Ming Foundation Charity Gala at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. I didn’t know what to expect, but I have to say I was pretty impressed. Of course, Yao Ming and his wife Ye Li attended, which was good to see since she is about 5 months pregnant, and glowing.

There was a good turnout among Yao’s teammates, like Shane Battier, Chase Budinger, Jared Jeffries, Jermaine Taylor, Hilton Armstrong, and David Armstrong. It must be tough for them to put on a happy face after losing four games in a row, so you have to give them credit for coming out to support Yao.

Former Rocket Dikembe Mutombo, former Rockets GM Carroll Dawson, Rockets CEO Tad Brown, and owner Leslie Alexander also attended. Team Yao members Bill Duffy, John Huizinga, and Bill Sanders also flew in for the event.

I liked how it was a fairly intimate setting, capped at about 300 attendees. As a result, it wasn’t uncomfortably crowded — you could move around without bumping into people. That’s a nice touch for the attendees who paid $500 per ticket. And because of it, It was relatively easy for people to get their picture taken with Yao and other Rocket players.

Lots of Chinese media also attended, so I know there are going to be tons of photos posted online from them. I took my own photos, too, which are posted here in the forum along with some details from Raymond, as well as photos from Chinese news agencies.

Because it’s so late, I’ll be posting in the next day or two more details and video I recorded at the Gala, so stay tuned.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 29th, 2010 at 10:26 am and is filed under Charity work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.