Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Big shoes

Big shoes

Last updated on: June 21, 2010 at 5:19 pm by Fred Clark

Big shoes 2010-06-21T17:19:23-04:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Manute Bol was tall.

Taller than that. Whatever it is you picture when you read the word "tall" doesn't quite capture how tall he was.

Just look at that picture there to the right. That's not some Iverson-sized guard he's defending there, that's Patrick Ewing. Patrick Ewing is 7-feet tall.

Manute Bol was more than a half-foot taller than Patrick Ewing.

When people saw Bol for the first time, they stared. It took a moment for their brain to accept what their eyes were taking in. It didn't matter if they'd seen pictures of him, or if they'd read all the statistics — 7-feet, 7-inches, with an 8 1/2-foot wingspan. It didn't even matter if they were NBA players accustomed to hanging around with 7-footers on a regular basis. Even opposing players, when they saw him for the first time would stop and stare, grinning from ear to ear.

You couldn't help but grin as you stared. Manute Bol wasn't just tall, he was delightfully tall.

That same reaction — incomprehension giving way to astonished delight — was how Manute Bol himself responded to America, the delightfully outsized country that plucked him from his home in Sudan — first as an NCAA recruiting infraction and NBA draft pick, and then again years later as a political refugee.

Manute Bol played in the NBA for 10 years, blocking more than 2,000 shots for the Bullets, Warriors, 76ers and Heat. He also scored 1,599 points during his career — retiring as the only NBA player with more blocked shots than points.

Some of those points came from behind the arc. Manute Bol's three-point shot was a glorious thing to see. Bol weighed less than 250 pounds and had the rail-thin frame of a Giacometti sculpture, so he could never really post up or fight for position inside. Instead he'd get the ball outside, looking to pass while holding the ball in both hands above his head, 10 feet above the court. And every once in a while, if no one was open, he'd flick his wrists sending the ball zipping toward the basket in almost a straight line.

I saw him hit one of those at the Spectrum, flat-footed from about five-feet beyond the arc. Flick, zip, swish. We went wild. "Manuuuute!"

The truth, though, is that Manute Bol was never a great basketball player. He came to the sport relatively late in life and — apart from shot-blocking — never really mastered the skills of the game.

It was often said that Bol lacked the "killer instinct" that great players need. I suppose that was true — even if it's a strange thing to say about the only NBA player who ever killed a lion with a spear.

Yes, Manute Bol really did that. As a teenager. He was raised in a Dinka village in southern Sudan, a place shaped by subsistence farming and herding. He killed the lion to protect his herd. With a freaking spear.

But what I think people meant about Bol's "killer instinct" was that he never seemed to take the game of basketball quite seriously enough. He hadn't chosen this game, it had chosen him. It discovered him in that Sudanese village and plucked him out of it, whisking him halfway around the world. All for the sake of a game.

Bol always seemed bewildered and slightly amused by that. Eugene McCarthy said that politics was like being a football coach, "You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it's important."

Manute Bol never seemed to master the second part of that equation. He always seemed to think we Americans were a little crazy, imagining that this game was such an important thing. It was never the most important thing to him. He had other priorities.

Those priorities weren't something he chose either. They were, for him, the unavoidable consequence of where he came from and the things that were happening there: war, slavery, oppression, genocide.

Basketball offered him a chance to escape all that, and he could have gone that route — play the game, take the money, don't look back. But instead he viewed basketball as a way to raise money and awareness to do whatever he could to help the people of his country. Manute Bol earned about $6 million dollars during his decade in the NBA. He spent it all on the Sudan — backing peace talks and political movements, building hospitals and schools.

"I don't work for money, I work to save people," he said. "I can always make more money, but you can't bring back those that are gone."

So he was also willing to cash in on our strange American obsession with games and to capitalize on people's delighted astonishment at his height. He laced up skates to play with a minor league hockey team and saddled a horse as the world's tallest jockey.

Some regarded this as an undignified freak show, but to Bol it wasn't any stranger than being paid millions to put a ball through a hoop (or, in his case, to prevent others from doing so). And if it raised money for his people and gave him a platform to speak about slavery or Darfur or human rights, then how could he say no just because he didn't know how to ice skate or ride a horse? "Whatever I can do to help my people I will do," he said.

And if concern for his own dignity couldn't be allowed to interfere with that, neither could concern for his own comfort or safety. Manute Bol died this weekend from a cascading series of ailments contracted while working back in the Sudan, trying to finish building yet another school for kids who wouldn't otherwise have one.

His obituaries ran in the sports pages of American newspapers. He was remembered as a prodigious shot-blocker and an exotic fan-favorite. And as having been really, really tall.

But he was never an All-Star. He retired with a modest career average of only 2.3 points per game. He won't ever be remembered as one of the NBA's all-time greats.

He had other priorities.

(Top photo by Jim Sulley, Associated Press, from a 1993 game at Madison Square Garden. Lower photo by Mark Wilson, Getty Images, from an April 2006 rally on genocide and slavery in the Sudan. Shaking hands with Bol is then House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.)

Uncategorized

Previous Post

June 18, 2010

Neighborhoods

Next Post

June 22, 2010 TF: Direct leading

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Christian group is known for practicing strict nonviolence?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Presbyterians Mennonites Lutherans Methodists