NATICK, Mass. - One of the world's best-known chefs and restaurateurs enjoyed the "home cooking" of the Yale Squash Courts on the fourth floor of the Payne Whitney Gymnasium to win matches before he went on to perfect the art of making customers happy through food.

Ming Tsai '86, an All-Ivy League squash player who won all but one varsity home match his senior season, earned a grander status, according to the critics, with his East-West cuisine at award-winning restaurants like Blue Ginger in Wellesley, Mass.  

Yale students, friends of the players, school faculty and staff typically show up to root on the Elis at home matches. Some fortunate Bulldogs also have family and special mentors on hand for motivation and more.

"The courts were packed with so many people and you could feel it. When you are in a match, you don't really see it. You have to be focused on the ball and your opponent, but it's so much fun with that many people there making noise," said Tsai.

Tsai won nine of his 11 matches as a Yale senior at the No. 2 position behind All-American Hugh LaBossier '86 (1986 U.S. amateur hardball champion) and was the co-recipient of the team award for the most improved player in a sport he honed at prep school. He briefly played professional squash to cover the costs of his European cooking fellowship.  

Cooking became intuitive for him at a younger age, growing up in a family with a restaurant business in Dayton, Ohio. His experience and personality helped him take the family knowledge and talent to another level with award-winning restaurants, books and TV shows.

Tsai, whose son, David '24, is on the Yale Squash Team, attended Phillips Academy Andover before coming to New Haven to play for Steve Gurney for a year and then David Talbott his last three seasons. The mechanical engineering major so enjoyed his experience with Talbott that he joined the family, eventually marrying the coach's sister, Polly, the inspiration for Ming's latest culinary innovation.

Polly, who recently became cancer free, changed her diet to help fight the disease. Ming, struggling to create menus that satisfied her needs, came up with MingsBings, known as food

that's "healthy, easy to make and fun to say." MingsBings, which are vegan, dairy and gluten-free, and plant-based veggie patties wrapped in brown rice, include eight super foods. There is clearly an emotional side to the business of Bings; some of the proceeds contribute to The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as well as Family Reach.

As a college student, Ming spent his summers attending Le Cordon Bleu cooking school and apprenticing at restaurants in Paris. He trained in Paris and Japan after leaving Yale before returning to the U.S. to earn a master's in hotel administration and hospitality marketing.

As an aspiring engineer at Yale, he faced some challenging project requirements. In one of his core classes junior year, he and his project partner had to build something that functioned properly and demonstrate it for the professor. Tsai and his friend decided to build the "Swim Meister," a mermaid-like fin to enhance a person's ability to move through water.

"I was gung-ho on mechanical engineering, and I would do everything full throttle. We built a mermaid tail with a pole and had velcro holders for the legs, essentially two legs became one with a fin," said Tsai, who had to lighten the metal when his first draft weighed 20 pounds and he was concerned it would sink the swimmer. "We were wondering who would put this on and dive in for us as we met the professor at the Payne Whitney pool. That's when I noticed one of our top Yale swimmers on the deck. I asked her if she would try the gadget for us. I would have struggled to swim with it, but she zoomed up and back and I got my first A at Yale."
 
Tsai, recipient of Yale's 2016 Kiphuth Fellowship Medal, opened his second restaurant, Blue Dragon, a highly acclaimed Asian gastro pub located in the Fort Point Channel area of Boston, in 2013, but he continued to share his knowledge world-wide. While he has authored five books and was host and executive producer of the public television cooking show, Simply Ming, he began his TV career on Food Network as the Emmy Award-Winning host of East Meets West with Ming Tsai.

Ming's Quest, his popular cooking adventure series, also aired on Food Network. In the summer of 2008, Ming traveled to the Beijing Olympics with NBC's Today Show to provide viewers with insight into food customs and traditions that define his Chinese heritage. 

His other current occupation is chef and partner of the Yellowstone Club Restaurant in Big Sky, Montana, the primary dining area for the world's only private – members only – ski and golf community. Tsai has also worked six Masters Tournaments for Wheels Up (aviation), serving over 800 of his signature (sake-miso marinated Alaskan Butterfish and vegetarian soba noodle sushi) dishes just off the Augusta National property.

Tsai has never run out of ways to compliment his recently retired coach, describing Talbott as completely honest, a great friend and a caring person before he even became family. However, the former Yale star could not describe his mentoring without mentioning Talbott's wife, Anne (his current sister-in-law), and former university administrator and squash player Sam Chauncey '57, unofficial support staff who were always at the Yale courts to help him feel the home court advantage.

"The coaches couldn't watch five matches at one time, so Annie would also watch matches and was a good coach whose tips I always welcomed. And Sam was my mentor in so many ways."
 
Tsai has not forgotten that he lost his final match at Yale against Harvard senior year, but that's not what he considers his last official match at the venue now called the Brady Squash Center. He had a running series, every Sunday all four years, against Chauncey, which was tied after 68 contests with the finale set for Tsai's graduation weekend.
 

"My parents were there watching, we had a bottle of Johnny Walker ready to toast the final match, and he won 18-17 in the fifth game. If felt like a win for both of us," said Tsai, whose other significant campus influences were professor and Timothy Dwight College head Robert "Master T" Thompson '55 and famous jazz musician and music school professor Willie Ruff.
 
While Tsai may have developed a flair for entertaining and educating while chasing down squash balls at the Payne Whitney Gym, he left a lasting impression on his coaches and teammates. Now he leaves a good taste in the mouths of all who experience his gastronomical innovations.