“They’re just a bit short. It would have been nice if both my sons were 5 centimeters taller. I wouldn’t have thought this if they weren’t good at basketball. Still, because they are doing so well, I wish for a little more,” said Huh Jae (59), known as the ‘Basketball President,’ during a recent visit to the Dong-A Media Center in Jongno-gu, Seoul, with his eldest son, Huh Woong (31, KCC, 185 centimeters), and his younger son, Huh Hoon (29, KT, 180 centimeters). Sitting next to him, ‘Basketball First Lady’ Lee Mi-soo (58) responded, “Basketball is not about the size in paper, it’s about the size of your heart.”
In the 2023-2024 professional basketball championship, Huh Woong’s team, KCC, defeated Huh Hoon’s team, KT, 4-1 to claim the title. Following his father’s footsteps, Huh Woong also won the MVP title for the championship series. Despite being shorter, Huh Hoon had a higher average score (26.6 points) than his brother, Huh Woong (18.8 points), in the finals. Even Huh Jae, who is 188 centimeters tall, the tallest among the three of them, never had a higher average score in the championship series since the professional basketball league began in 1997.
“I was happy because both of my sons did well in the finals. But it would have been cooler if the older one had won the championship and the younger one had won the MVP,” Huh Jae laughed. He won the MVP award for the finals in the 1997-1998 season, the first and still the only time a player from a runner-up team has done so.
“My father received the MVP for the finals in Busan (Kia’s home at the time), and they say I am the next MVP from the Busan team,” Huh Woong commented. “Hoon also played in Busan before KT moved its home base to Suwon. It’s amazing.”
Busan is also Lee Mi-soo’s hometown. She originally dreamed of having her two sons attend prestigious high schools there. “My family, being a family of doctors, didn’t like the idea of me marrying an athlete. Almost no one in the family even knew who my husband was,” said Lee. “Because of their opposition, I felt an even stronger sense of responsibility to live my life well after marrying.”
Her dream began to go off track when her eldest son, who was a top student and always class president in elementary school, declared he wanted to play basketball. Then, her younger son, who was shorter than his peers, also started a basketball career. Lee moved to be near Yongsan Middle and High School in Seoul, where her sons attended, and began preparing three meals a day for them to support their goals.
“I couldn’t score goals for them, so I didn’t do much for them. Their mother endured a lot, living near their school and taking care of them,” Huh Jae said. “It wouldn’t have been easy being called ‘the sons of Huh Jae,’ but look at how far they’ve come to be where they are now. I am so proud of them.”
As her sons succeed, Lee understands the feelings of a mother, with one son selling umbrellas and another selling salt. “When Hoon won the regular season MVP, Woong underwent ankle surgery and rehabilitation, which was tough. Woong won the championship MVP this time, but Hoon was bedridden with a severe cold for a week, so it was less exciting,” she said. “Still, I don’t worry much about my sons this year. I worry more about my husband, who collapsed at the end after ignoring my nagging to go to see a doctor.”
“When I went to the championship this time, both sons had a lot of fans,” said Huh Jae. “It’s fortunate that both have likable personalities, unlike me, having many enemies back then.” He recently quit drinking due to cardiovascular disease. Making a joke about himself, he laughed heartily, looking at his wife and two sons.
Bo-Mi Im bom@donga.com