On June 1, 2008, in the private room of a hotel in Beijing's Chaoyang District, a group of stout, tall, middle-aged men gathered here.
Because of their height, most of these people have their heads on top of the ceiling, and a few even need to bend over to move.
The reason why they were able to gather this group of "giants" was because they were all retired players of the "Bayi Men's Basketball Team".
After many years, seeing each other again, this group of old teammates who once played together on the field naturally talked about everything, and the atmosphere was particularly strong.
"Looking back on the past, the years are thick."
Looking back on the youth years thirty years ago, everyone's hearts are also full of emotion and excitement.
Image from the web
However, this party, in addition to getting together to reminisce about the past years, there is also a very important thing, that is, to celebrate the birthday of Mu Tiezhu, the "ace center" who was once in the team.
The "first center" who once led the "Bayi team" to traverse the whole country and dominate Asia is now 59 years old.
"Honest and old, can you still eat?"
Even if he is about to enter the old age, Mu Tiezhu's figure still looks like a "Big Mac".
Because they had not seen each other for many years, everyone talked until very late, until before leaving, the old teammates also promised Mu Tiezhu that when he turned 60 next year, he would definitely come back to celebrate his birthday.
By that time, the party will be more lively than this one.
However, they did not know at the moment that this promise could no longer be fulfilled after this separation...
Mu Tiezhu
Sudden illness, quietly died
More than three months later, on September 14, this day, Mu Tiezhu went downstairs after eating as usual to exercise in the park near the community.
Due to old age and too tall, it takes a lot of effort to take every step.
This also made Mu Tiezhu have to sigh: "Time is like flowing water, and the years are not spared." ”
Since it is the time of autumn, the weather changes very quickly.
Before I went downstairs for five minutes, the clouds were already covered overhead, and then a light rain began to fall.
So Mu Tiezhu had to turn around and return home.
Mu Tiezhu and his wife Wang Zhuanhong
Probably due to the good mood being broken by the bad weather, Mu Tiezhu was on the way home, when he suddenly felt a dizziness in his brain and a little dull in his chest.
So he quickly stopped and rested for a moment, then quickly accelerated his pace and returned home.
After sitting on the sofa for a nap, Mu Tiezhu felt that his state had recovered a lot.
He felt that his physical condition during this time had been bad, probably because he had wasted his exercises, which had caused him to become weak.
So, Mu Tiezhu sat on the fitness bike in the house again, and then pedaled on it.
The light rain outside made the air inside become damp and stuffy, and before long, Mu Tiezhu's forehead was already covered with sweat.
After pedaling for ten minutes, another dull feeling appeared in his chest, and then, Mu Tiezhu's movement became smaller and smaller, and before he could react, a violent feeling of vertigo surged into his head.
Mu Tiezhu with his family
Subsequently, Mu Tiezhu's eyes went black and he fell straight to the ground.
Hearing a loud "poof", Mu Tiezhu's wife Wang Zhuanhong ran out of the bedroom in a hurry, and after seeing Mu Tiezhu fall to the ground, Wang Zhuanhong immediately ran to check her husband's condition, and took out her mobile phone in time and dialed the emergency number of 120.
When the emergency personnel arrived at the scene, they immediately took emergency first aid measures against Mu Tiezhu, but Mu Tiezhu had already fallen into shock and never reacted at all.
Therefore, with the help of everyone, everyone carried the 2.26-meter-tall "giant" to the ambulance, and then sent it to the nearest people's hospital.
As a result, under the doctor's continuous rescue for more than 4 hours, He still failed to save Mu Tiezhu.
The "Asian No. 1 Center", who once led the "Bayi Team" and the Chinese men's basketball team to the top of Asia, finally left the world because of a sudden heart attack.
Mu Tiezhu
From beggars to basketball players
In today's era, with the changes in economic development and the importance of sports development, more and more wealthy families choose to send their children to the path of professional sports.
This has also led to the fact that in the field of professional basketball, many people have lived a life of small clothes and food.
However, at the time when New China was just founded, this was not the case.
Mu Tiezhu was born on June 1, 1949, the same age as New China, and is a native of Dongming County, Heze City, Shandong Province.
Because in the era when he grew up, the country had just been established, there was no perfect economic system, and everything was a scene of waste waiting to be rebuilt, so many people's families were very poor.
Mu Tiezhu
Before Mu Tiezhu was 10 years old, he often had to follow his family to the street to beg for food, in order to barely take care of his own food and clothing problems.
Later, due to the state's strategy of "developing the Great Northwest", many people flocked to the Great Northwest region to seek a livelihood, and Mu Tiezhu's family also moved to Xinjiang, where they worked as a small business selling vegetables and fruits to live a normal life.
When he was 16 years old, Mu Tiezhu's mother took him from Xinjiang back to his hometown to develop.
One day, when Mu Tiezhu was carrying his own chicken cubs to the market to sell, he was suddenly stopped by a person.
This person's name is Zhang Fengkui, and he is the director of the basketball department of the Dongming County Sports Committee.
It turned out that at that time, the Shandong Provincial Games were about to be held, and Zhang Fengkui also received an order to select some young talents for the basketball department and wanted to get some good rankings in the Games.
Tall Mu Tiezhu
When he was shopping, he suddenly saw Mu Tiezhu, who was already two meters and two meters at the time, walking on the street like a flock of chickens, which suddenly surprised Zhang Fengkui, so he wanted to recruit him into the basketball department and play the position of center.
After hearing Zhang Fengkui's intentions, Mu Tiezhu felt a little stunned.
"What is basketball?" I've never heard of it before. ”
At that time, the means of communication were very limited, and ordinary people who wanted to contact sports could only track sports competitions through live or radio broadcasts.
And Mu Tiezhu, whose life has always been very shabby, naturally cannot be related to these things.
Therefore, even if Zhang Fengkui carefully explained to Mu Tiezhu afterwards, he still felt that there was a fog in the clouds.
It wasn't until Zhang Fengkui said that as long as he went to participate in training, then he would eat and live, that Mu Tiezhu finally agreed to this sudden request.
Image from the web
However, when Mu Tiezhu came to the basketball department in Dongming County the next day to report, the coach made a series of evaluations of it, and found that although the big man was very tall, he did not know the rules of basketball at all, let alone use technology to play.
At that time, the sports meeting was about to be held, and it was impossible to teach Mu Tiezhu basketball skills in a short time.
Therefore, the Dongming County Basketball Department had to reject Mu Tiezhu's application to join the team.
Seeing this result, Zhang Fengkui felt very sorry, he did not want this potential genius to be buried, so he introduced him to the Shandong Sports Committee.
As a result, the Shandong Sports Committee also retreated Mu Tiezhu for the same reason.
Mu Tiezhu with coach
Fortunately, when Mu Tiezhu lost confidence in entering the basketball field, he happened to encounter the staff of the State Sports Commission who came to Shandong for inspection, and the result was that Mu Tiezhu was waiting to be polished.
So he used 20 basketballs to replace him and bring the young guy to Beijing.
Not long after, Mu Tiezhu was taken to Huangshi, Hubei Province by the famous basketball coach Yu Bangji for basic skills training.
During training, Yu Bangji found that this young man, who had never touched basketball, had a very strong learning ability.
Each action, as long as it is demonstrated once, can be easily completed.
Bayi men's basketball team
However, because Mu Tiezhu was so tall, it took a lot of energy to run, which made him often move for 10 minutes and then he was out of breath.
Therefore, Yu Bangji let Mu Tiezhu run 10,000 meters a day to exercise his physical fitness.
A year and a half later, after Yu Bangji's continuous polishing and tempering, Mu Tiezhu could finally adapt to the rhythm of the basketball game and "show his might" on the court.
Subsequently, Mu Tiezhu entered the "Bayi Team" and became a real basketball player.
Mu Tiezhu
The "Big Mac" on the field
In that era, whether in the lives of ordinary people or on the basketball court, people's average height was far less than today.
This also allows Mu Tiezhu, who is more than 2 meters 20, to exert his height advantage to the most extreme limits.
In his first year of officially entering the arena, he has become the "big killer" of the opposite.
As long as Mu Tiezhu makes a stop under the rebound, it will be like a high wall, blocking the opponent's front, making it difficult for them to break through the defense.
When his side attacks, Mu Tiezhu can easily "stuff" the ball into the basket frame as long as he reaches out, and almost no one can stop him.
Under his leadership, the "Bayi Team" won the championship title at the National Games for three consecutive years.
Mu Tiezhu led the team to win the championship
Once, when invited to a game in the city, Mu Tiezhu actually scored more than 80 points in a single game, which made him break the official scoring record in one fell swoop and stunned everyone who went to watch the game.
"On the field, at least half of the baskets belong to Mu Tiezhu."
After the game, a reporter who went to the scene to watch the game described it in a later report.
Since then, Mu Tiezhu has also added nicknames such as "half a basket".
From "basketball white" to "half a basket", the speed of this progress is undoubtedly extremely amazing. This also marks that Mu Tiezhu's road to fame has just begun.
Mu Tiezhu competed on the field
In 1979, China and the United States formally established diplomatic relations.
To celebrate this grand event, the U.S. Collegiate United team came to China to play friendly matches under the banner of the U.S. national team.
Although it was only a friendly match, and the other side was composed of college students, the level of basketball in the United States at that time was far ahead of other countries, so few people were optimistic about the "Bayi team" before the game.
As a result, in two consecutive friendly matches, Mu Tiezhu once again "played the game", scoring 35 points and 28 points in succession, leading the Bayi team to win all two games.
This result surprised everyone and made Mu Tiezhu's name completely start.
Bayi men's basketball team
In the early 1980s, Mu Tiezhu followed the national team to the international arena, first in the Asian Championships to win Japan, South Korea, the Chinese team to the asian men's basketball supremacy status, and then out of the "World Championships", on the international stage "big kill", so that all people who pay attention to basketball, have known this "Big Mac" from the East.
His outstanding performance on the international stage has also made Mu Tiezhu win the title of "Asia's First Center".
Since then, he has become a household celebrity, and even when he goes to Donglaishun for a meal, he has to surround hundreds of fans to ask for autographs.
Mu Tiezhu signed an autograph for fans
After retiring from the army, he continued to contribute
Sometimes, God opens a door for you, but it may also close a window.
When Mu Tiezhu was on the field, some people predicted that with his strong physique, the burden on his body when exercising was very huge, and it was likely that he would retire early.
However, since Mu Tiezhu often maintained the coordination of exercise and body, this kept his career going on for a long time.
It was not until 1987, after participating in the sixth National Games in 1987, that Mu Tiezhu bid farewell to his basketball career, when he was thirty-eight years old.
Mu Tiezhu
After retiring, Mu Tiezhu first stayed in the team as a coach for several years, and then retired to recuperate at home due to physical reasons.
In 1996, Mu Tiezhu was found to have "premature heart beating" and was no longer suitable for strenuous exercise, so he completely bid farewell to the basketball world, and from then on, he only participated in some civilian work in basketball planning.
This also allows Mu Tiezhu to continue to use his own strength to help the cause of Chinese basketball after retirement.
In 2008, after Mu Tiezhu's death, many basketball celebrities came to Babaoshan Cemetery to attend his memorial service.
Among them, including wang zhizhi, the then captain of the Bayi team, Zheng Haixia, the legend of women's basketball, and Yao Ming, the first person in Chinese basketball.
At the memorial service, in the face of this former leader of the Chinese basketball world, many people shed tears of sadness.
Mu Tiezhu's memorial service
"Mu Tiezhu laid a solid foundation for the Chinese men's basketball team to become the hegemon of Asia in his player era, and his death is a huge loss to the cause of Chinese basketball."
On the day of Mu Tiezhu's memorial service, Sina Published an article commemorating the men's basketball celebrity, and this paragraph in the article also shows how greatly Mu Tiezhu has made to the cause of Chinese basketball.
And his name will always be engraved in the history of the development of Chinese basketball, and will be remembered by generations of inheritors.