By Frank Pingue
TORONTO (Reuters) - Ed Wang did not register a blip on the National Football League's (NFL) radar screen a year ago, but now the full-blooded Chinese descendant and draft pick of the Buffalo Bills is proving to be a marketing dream for the north American sport.
Wang became the first player with direct Chinese ancestry to be drafted when he was taken in the fifth round of the April draft and is now the likely poster boy for a league looking to establish a bigger presence in China.
The son of former athletes in the Chinese Olympic programme, Wang was taught about hard work and discipline at a young age. His strict upbringing left little time for friends as he played sport year round and had an intense workout regime.
"To be honest, at first I didn't really enjoy it all," Wang told Reuters in a recent telephone interview. "But as I got older I really started appreciating it and it really made sense why they made me do all that stuff and it paid off."
Wang's parents -- his father was a high jumper and his mother a hurdler -- were so focused on their son's athletic career that they had his bones and joints measured by a doctor in China to get an idea of how tall their son would grow.
The doctor correctly predicted Wang, who at the time played basketball and football, would grow to six feet five inches. Since his parents figured that was too short for a career as a center in the National Basketball Association (NBA), they decided he should focus on American football.
COLLEGE CAREER
Born in Virginia to Chinese immigrant parents, Wang was no stranger to prejudice through his journey playing a game that has yet to see much presence of Chinese players.
"My parents warned me that I was going to get made fun of and that people are going to talk about me just because I was different, so I was prepared for that at a young age," said Wang. "Of course it did kind of hurt but at the same time I was already ready for it so it didn't really bother me."
Wang spent his college career at Virginia Tech, where he earned All-Atlantic Coast Conference second-team honors in 2009, and has quickly made an impression on the Bills.
Buffalo last month signed the 300-pound (136-kg) offensive tackle to a deal reported to be for four years. It was the first contract awarded to the Bills' nine draft picks this year, including the four picked earlier than Wang.
The Bills have acknowledged that Wang, while not a finished product, has the potential to be a starter in the near future for a team that has not made the playoffs since 1999.
Wang, whose long black hair flows out of his red-and-blue Bills helmet and over his broad shoulders, is fluent in Mandarin and offers the NFL a chance to build a presence in an area where it has barely established a footprint.
While Wang says he spends much of his spare time watching television or playing video games so he can stay off his feet after intense workouts, he is up to the task of carrying the NFL on his shoulders and popularizing the game in China.
If he can make an impact on the field, Wang could help to lure more Chinese fans to the NFL, just as Yao Ming did for the NBA when he broke into the league in 2002 as the first overall draft pick.
"I would love to be able to do something like that and I am really grateful that I could have the opportunity," said Wang. "If the league wants me to do that for them I would welcome it and be more than happy to do it."
Despite not playing a game in the NFL, Wang has already drawn plenty of attention in China, where major newspapers carried stories about him the day after he was drafted.
"We've never had that kind of magnitude before in China, so that was huge for us," Chris Parsons, vice president of NFL International told Reuters in a telephone interview. "And then beyond that, having someone that speaks fluent Mandarin that can host interviews and speak with the media...is another good part of the story."
(Editing by Clare Fallon)
