Song Tao (; born November 6, 1965 in

Jimo Jimo District (), formerly Jimo City (), is a District of Qingdao, Shandong. Location Jimo is located in the southwest of the Shandong Peninsula, bordered by the Yellow Sea on the east and Mount Lao on the south. Climate Jimo has a moderate ...

, Shandong) is a retired Chinese

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player and coach. 6'10" (209 cm) with impressive mobility, he was the first player from Asia drafted by an NBA team when the

Atlanta Hawks The Atlanta Hawks are an American professional basketball team based in Atlanta. The Hawks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The team plays its home games at ...

selected him in the 3rd round of the

1987 NBA draft The 1987 NBA draft was held on June 22, 1987, in New York City. This draft included two future members of the NBA 50 Greatest Players list, David Robinson and Scottie Pippen, as well as fellow Hall of Famer Reggie Miller, who was named to t ...

,Full list of draftees in the 1987 NBA Draft on Basketball Reference.com
/ref> although he never went to training camp due to serious knee injuries. Song competed at 1988 Seoul Olympic Games and was the flag bearer of the Chinese Olympic team. He retired from

China men's national basketball team The China men's national basketball team (nickname ''Team Dragon'') represents the People's Republic of China in international basketball tournaments. The national team is governed by the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). Based on the numb ...

in 1991 and became a

player-coach A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the sq ...

in the Shandong provincial team. In 1993, Song went to study in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, California and then moved to

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

to compete in the professional Chinese Basketball Alliance until he retired there around the turn of the century. He coached the

National Chiao Tung University National Chiao Tung University (NCTU; ) was a public research university located in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Established in 1896 as Nanyang Public School by an imperial edict of the Guangxu Emperor, it was one of China's leading universities. After th ...

varsity team in the ensuing years. Song returned to China in 2003, and has since lived in Suzhou,

Jiangsu Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its ca ...

where he became a businessman.

Family

His wife Peng Ping is also a former basketball player. She was a member of the

China women's national basketball team The China women's national basketball team represents the People's Republic of China in international women's basketball tournaments. The national team is governed by the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). Tournament record Olympic Games *19 ...

that won the 1992 Olympic silver medals in basketball in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, Spain.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Song, Tao 1965 births Living people Atlanta Hawks draft picks Chinese men's basketball players Basketball players from Qingdao Asian Games medalists in basketball Basketball players at the 1986 Asian Games Power forwards (basketball) Asian Games gold medalists for China Chinese expatriate basketball people Medalists at the 1986 Asian Games Expatriate basketball people in Taiwan Chinese expatriates in Taiwan Yulon Luxgen Dinos players Chinese Basketball Alliance imports BCC Mars players LUCKIPar players