RIP Manute Bol

RIP to an OK basketball player, and a tremendous man.

 

Barkley pranking Manute:

 

That's gonna be a long coffin.

 

I was in the room when that was filmed. Funny beyond belief.

 

Very sad news about Manute Bol, who lived a selfless life after his basketball career ended. I loved watching Washington Bullets games on Home Team Sports while growing up in the D.C. area - Bol, Wes Unseld, Moses Malone, Gheorge Muresan, et al - and I got a little teary-eyed when I read of Bol's passing.
There was an excellent BASW piece about 20 years ago on Bol returning to Sudan ... was it Leigh Montville who wrote it?

 

I believe I was the only TV person to interview Manute the day he was drafted by the Bullets. At 5'9", I had to hold the microphone outstretched all the way to reach just under his chin. My photog had worse problems: had trouble holding the severe angle pointed upwards to get Manute's head in the shot. So we decided to sit Manute down and his knees still came up to my head.

RIP Manute.

 

I didn't realize all Manute did off the court. A lot of people (myself included) could learn from him. RIP to a great man indeed.

 

What Manute Bol and Dikembe Mutombo have done for their homelands in Africa hasn't received enough credit. HBO's "Real Sports" did something on Manute some time back. And better late than never to continue to get out the stories of Bol and Mutombo and their attempts to seemingly singlehandedly save Sudan and Republic of Congo, respectively.

RIP Manute, and thank you for both your contributions to humanity and your ability to never take yourself too seriously.

 

We had two NBA stories on an inside page I did the other day. One was Manute Bol's obit, with all the humanitarian efforts well documented from start to finish. The other was LeBron showing up at a rally whose sole purpose was to appreciate LeBron himself.

I wish stars like LeBron would be more Manute Bol and less Michael Jordan sometimes. Bol was a rare breed in the NBA.

 

I thought I read that LeBron showed up late for that event. It had officially been declared over and most of the people left. Then he showed up, talked about how great Akron was. The award they were giving him had already been packed away, they had to unpack it to give it to him.

 

RIP big guy.

Your cloud should be very high.

 

To the big stars show up late to these things (as well as press conferences) because they really are busy and have other things that keep them from getting there on time or do they show up late because they can?