Foy finds a ‘new Olympics’
Leo wrestling coach, a Thornwood graduate, takes on new persona as Chef Blackanese
Call it the eggroll that changed Michial Foy’s life.
In 2008, the Thornwood graduate was at a crossroads in his life. He wrestled at the University of Minnesota before becoming a two-time Olympian and winning gold and silver medals in the Pan American Games.
He had many adventures in his post-athletic career, including when he and his wife, Tina, opened the Foy’s Toys shop in Minnesota. He was back home in the Chicago area selling pharmaceuticals, hoping one day he could be an entrepreneur again.
Michial said he was not a big fan of Chinese food, but one night in 2008, he reluctantly went for a meal at the Dragon Inn located in Homewood.
He enjoyed the food and said the flavor was “popping off the plate.”
Then, Tina told him he should try an eggroll, and that led to him buying the place. But itwas not an easy sell at first.
“I was like, ‘Do not even bring that thing close to me,’ ” Michial said. “It could have been a stick of dynamite. She said, ‘Just taste this.’ I bit into it and I said, ‘Woah. Howmuch do they want?’
“It sealed the deal. We had all of this type of food that I had not been crazy about, and I purchased the restaurant from Tony Chang.”
The restaurant closed a few years ago, but between the first
egg roll and the last meal served to customers, Foy learned how to cook and took on a new persona as Chef Blackanese.
He has his own brand of sauces that can be purchased on Amazon, and he's trying to get a deal with Roku to stream a channel with cooking and sports.
Cooking and sports have been a big part of Foy's life, and others in the business have taken notice.
“Two-time Olympian in one of the toughest sports, yeah, I think I would want him on my team,” Jeff Reasback of Texas wrote on Alignable.com, a smallbusiness referral network.
“Mike and his team have created a tremendous product that needs to be in your kitchen.”
Foy has also made his cooking passion a family affair.
While he was at the Dragon Inn, Foy's daughters Mia, Teja, Milea and Tineja and sons Michial James and James Michael worked in the restaurant while studying and playing sports at CreteMonee.
Michial James went on to win the 2018-19 National Junior CollegeAthletic Association wrestling national championship at 165 pounds.
Winning at that level eluded the elder Foy.
Even though he was one of the best wrestlers in the world, he never placed at state in high school or at the national level in college.
He took wrestling seriously but not as seriously as when he left college, had a job as an assistant manager at Burger King and united with coach Jerry Robinson.
After not placing in the Seoul Olympics in 1988, Foy took sixth at 1992 four years later in Barcelona.
Foy, who's also the wrestling coach at Leo, said basketball was his favorite sport while growing up and wrestling was second.
“I wasn't that bluechip athlete coming out of high school,” he said. “Truth be told, I kind of shortchanged myself in the way I saw it at that particular time. I never fully committedmyself to wrestling.”
Decades later, Foy is fully committed to cooking and selling sauce.
“This is my new Olympics,” he said.