The classic Manute Bol, the NBA’S tallest player: The iconic South Sudanese and Dinka-born Humanitarian, philanthropist and a true hero.
Manute Bol from (October 16, 1962 – June 19, 2010) was a South Sudanese-born basketball player and political activist. Along with Gheorghe Mureşan, he was one of the tallest men to ever play in the National Basketball Association, standing 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m).
POV of World Record
In the Guinness Book of World Records, he was officially measured and listed at 7 feet, 6 3/4 inches tall. He is thought to have been born on October 16, 1962, in Turalei or Gogrial, South Sudan. He was the son of a Dinka tribal elder, who named him “Manute,” which means “special blessing” in Dinka.
How and when he passed.
MANUTE BOL 2009: Bol, died on Saturday of kidney failure.
Who was Bol, according to people’s perspectives?
“Bol lived a life befitting a man of such an outsized body,” Jordan Conn writes in his book “The Defender” about Bol. He could be on a basketball court or a television screen at any given time, in a congressional meeting or a war zone, in a hut or a mansion. He gambled on occasion. He drank a lot. Regardless of the circumstances, he worked tirelessly to ensure the happiness of those around him. His relationships with colleagues on the court would eventually be supplanted by those with a young man from his war-torn town who was working to educate his people and free his homeland. Together, they would win games and entertain audiences. But he was meticulously crafting the legend of Manute Bol at all times.
Throughout his career, Bol played basketball for numerous teams. He was a member of two college teams and four NBA teams. As a center, he was known as a specialist; he was regarded as one of the best shot-blockers in the sport’s history, but other facets of his game were regarded as relatively weak. Throughout his career, he blocked more shots than he scored. He ranks second in NBA history in terms of average shots blocked per game and 15th in career blocks.
His family and the context of his stature
Manute Bol was born in Turalei (or Gogrial) to Madut and Okwok Bol and raised near Gogrial. He was born into a family of tall men and women: “My mother was 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m), my father was 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m), and my sister is 6 ft 8 in (2.03 m),” he said. “My great-grandfather was even taller, standing at 7 ft 10 in (2.39 m).” His tribe, the Dinka, and the Nilotic people, of which they are a part, are among the world’s tallest people. Turalei, Bol’s hometown, is also the birthplace of other extremely tall people, including 7 ft 4 in (2.24 m) basketballer Ring Ayuel. Ayuel is a refugee from the civil war that erupted soon after Bol.
He grew up tending to his family’s cattle. He once killed a lion with a spear while working as a cowherd, according to a story he was frequently asked to repeat in interviews. He only began playing basketball when he was about 15 years old.
Bol had exceptionally long limbs (inseam 49 inches (120 cm)), and large hands and feet (size 161/2) to go with his great height. His arm span, at 8 feet 6 inches (2.59 m), is the longest in NBA history (as of 2013), and his reach was 10 feet 5 inches (3.18 m). He was extremely thin, which limited his offensive potential.
The Move
He weighed 180 pounds (82 kg) when he first arrived in the US and added just under 20 pounds (9.1 kg) by the time he made it into the NBA. Bol was sent to strength training with University of Maryland coach Frank Costello, where he could only lift 45 pounds (20 kg) on a 10-rep bench press and 55 pounds (25 kg) on a 10-rep squat (his BMI was 15.3 and he had a 31″ (80 cm) waist at the time).
He began playing soccer (football) in 1972 but stopped because he was too tall. Bol began playing basketball in his late teens. He spent several years in Sudan with teams in Wau and Khartoum, where he encountered racial prejudice from the northern Sudanese majority. Bol reportedly worked in the Sudanese military for $80 per month (1983 U.S. dollars) and participated in the national team while he was still residing there. Bol was persuaded to move to the US when Fairleigh Dickinson University coach Don Feeley witnessed him play basketball in Khartoum. The San Diego Clippers selected Bol in the fifth round of the 1983 NBA Draft (97th overall), but the league determined that Bol was ineligible for the draft and declared him invalid.
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Cleveland State University head basketball coach Kevin Mackey then invited him to Cleveland, but he didn’t speak or write English very well at the time. He was unable to improve his English skills despite months of classes at Case Western Reserve University’s ELS Language Centers, and he never played a game for Cleveland State. Cleveland State was placed on two years probation five years later for improper financial assistance to Bol and two other African players.
In the 1984–1985 season, he played college basketball for the Purple Knights at the University of Bridgeport, a Division II basketball institution. He recorded game averages of 22.5 points, 13.5 rebounds, and 7.1 blocks. The 1,800-seat gym was regularly sold out by the squad, which had previously attracted 500–600 fans. After that, he spent a brief time with the USBL’s Rhode Island Gulls.
The NBA
Scouts thought Bol needed another year or two of college before entering the 1985 NBA Draft, but Bol chose the draft because he felt it was the only way to get his sister out of Sudan, which was experiencing political unrest at the time. Bol was selected by the Washington Bullets as the seventh pick in the second round in 1985. (31st overall). From 1985 to 1995, he spent parts of four seasons with the Bullets, three seasons with the Golden State Warriors, four seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers, and one season with the Miami Heat in the 1993-1994 season. Bol’s second stint with the Bullets lasted only two games, 1993-1994.
Bol’s final NBA stint was with the Golden State Warriors in 1994-1995. He made the season-opening roster and appeared in his final five NBA games.
Post-NBA
He played 22 games for the Florida Beach Dogs of the Continental Basketball Association during the 1995-1996 season.
Death
Bol died on June 19, 2010, at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, of acute kidney failure and Stevens-Johnson syndrome complications.
He was survived by 10 children, six with his first wife, Atong, and four with his second wife, Ajok. One of his sons with Ajok, Bol Bol, was a 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) tall 7th grader as of October 2012 and considered one of the better basketball prospects of his class.
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