Korean-American basketball star player honors mother

Changwon LG Sakers forward Moon Tae-jong drives to score during a game against the Mobis Phoebus at Dongchun Gymnasium, Ulsan, on Dec. 13, 2014. / Courtesy of Changwon LG Sakers

Korean-American basketball player Moon Tae-jong talks about his plans after his retirement from the KBL at a coffee shop in Yeonhui-dong, Seoul, on April 15. / Korea Times photo by Kim Jae-heun

By Kim Jae-heun

At 39, Korean-American basketball player Moon Tae-jong runs an average of over 30 minutes per game and is still very much a clutch player. He is often a team’s star player, who performs almost impossible feats in each game. Moon was once considered the best small forward at the top leagues in Europe, like Spain and Greece. He came to Korea five years ago to keep his promise to his mother of finishing his career in Korea, where she was born.

“I wanted to use my career to learn the culture in Korea, which I missed when I was young,” said Moon, whose American name is Jarod Stevenson. “The media coverage in Korea is wide, and my mother’s family can watch me play on TV. They are proud of me, and I like to see that.”

Korean fans welcomed Moon with open arms when he first arrived in Seoul in 2010, but growing up Korean-American was not so easy.

“North Carolina is not the best place to live for people like me. When I got older, I saw it. Our family would go out for dinner, and people would watch us like ‘why is a black guy married to an Asian woman?’ But it didn’t bother me,” said Moon during an Interview with The Korea Times.

Moon’s youth basketball team knew that he was biracial, but this fact did not matter to the young athlete. He only played harder to prove himself. In Korea, Moon heard more discrimination than he experienced.

Still, the basketball player considers himself more Korean than American. He feels accepted in the team when his colleagues call him “hyung,” or brother in Korean, instead of his American name.

Moon dreamed of becoming a basketball player while watching his hometown and national hero Michael Jordan play on TV. His father was a big fan of the sport too, so he watched the NBA with Moon. Moon joined the school’s basketball team at the age of nine and practiced four hours a day with his two brothers ― one of them is Moon Tae-young, a professional basketball player at Ulsan Mobis Pheobus in Korea.

Moon played college basketball at the University of Richmond. After he graduated in 1998, he wanted to try out for the NBA, but lockout that year discouraged him from doing so.

The prominent athlete tried out for the New York Knicks and Milwaukee Bucks in the following years, which didn’t work out. Moon played half a season in the secondary league Continental Basketball Association (CBA), now called D-league, but the pay was too low, so he had to move on.

An opportunity came again in the third year of his career when he was playing in the Italian league.

“My team played against Mike D'Anthoni’s team, who later moved to the United States to lead the Phoenix Suns as a head coach, and I played well,” Moon said. “Mike D'Anthoni contacted me to try out for a month during the summer, but I didn’t make it.” It was the closest moment Moon came to the NBA.

“I felt I was good enough to play in the NBA, but they had guaranteed a player whom they have already drafted. It was hard for me to beat him,” Moon said. At the time, Moon was 25 and was at his best.

Moon did not want to keep knocking on the NBA’s door, because leaving his position in his European team entailed the risk of losing his job. European contracts for foreign players were effective for only a year, and Moon would have been kicked out had he not returned to the team after the summer.

“The payment was much higher in Europe too. I earned double the amount that an NBA team would pay me. I was married at the young age of 24, so financial matters were important. Every year, I had to move to the team that would pay me the most,” Moon said.

Moon quickly became the French League National Cup Final MVP in his first year in Europe and then participated in the All Star Game in the 2006 FIBA EuroCup. The top small forward has played in eight European countries for 12 years, but his best career moments had yet to come.

After transferring to a Korean team through a draft for ethnic Korean players, Moon conquered the Asian league by winning Player of the Year and becoming a part of the Best Five in 2011. In 2014, the veteran athlete made the national team as a naturalized player, to lead the team in getting its first gold medal at the Asian Games in 12 years since 2002.

“The Asian Games was the biggest achievement for me. We didn’t have the best team in history, but we certainly had best chemistry.

“Pursuing high goals required the hardest efforts, and I had to give up my summer break to practice for the Asian Games. I did not get to see my family until the tournament started in August,” Moon said.

Moon is on his summer break now and is preparing for the next season. Although he lives a high-profile life on the court as a basketball player, Moon is a laid-back person at home who enjoys spending time with his family.

“My son wants to be the next LeBron James, and he is pestering me to move back to America. After I retire, my family will do so, and I will visit Korea once in a while to run the youth basketball camps,” Moon said.