Manute Bol

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Basketball player
Manute Bol
Player information
birthday October 16, 1962
place of birth Gogrial , Sudan
date of death June 19, 2010
Place of death Charlottesville , Virginia , United States
size 231 cm
Weight 91 kg
position center
college Bridgeport
NBA draft 1985 , 31st Pick, Washington Bullets
Clubs as active
1985–1988 Washington Bullets 1988–1990 Golden State Warriors 1990–1993 Philadelphia 76ers 1993–1994 Miami Heat 1994 Washington Bullets 1994 Philadelphia 76ers 1994–1995 Golden State Warriors 1995–1996 Florida Beachdogs 1996 Libertas ForlìUnited StatesUnited States
United StatesUnited States
United StatesUnited States
United StatesUnited States
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00000ItalyItaly
National team
1982-1983 SudanSudan Sudan

Manute Bol (born October 16, 1962 in Gogrial , Sudan , † June 19, 2010 in Charlottesville , Virginia ) was a basketball player from Sudan who played for the Washington Bullets , Golden State Warriors , Philadelphia 76ers and Miami Heat in the NBA .

The 2.31 meter tall Bol was the second tallest player in NBA history behind Gheorghe Mureșan . In contrast to that, however, its size was not the result of a stunted growth.

He belonged to the Dinka ethnic group .

Bol died on June 19, 2010 of complications from Stevens-Johnson Syndrome , a drug-allergic skin disease that he contracted in Africa.

Career

college

The American Don Feeley, who at the time worked as a trainer at Fairleigh Dickinson University , briefly supervised Sudan's national basketball team in the summer of 1982 and got to know the 2.29 meter tall bol, which was part of the selection. On Feeley's mediation, Bol came to the University of Bridgeport (second NCAA division) in 1983 , where a close friend of Feeley's Bruce Webster was a coach. Bol did not speak English at the time and was taking a language course for foreign students in Bridgeport. A planned move to Cleveland State University did not materialize.

Despite a lack of knowledge of English, homesickness and initial problems with the new sport (Bol knocked out several teeth in a dunk attempt when he rammed the basket with his jaw), he prevailed. With his height and his arm span of 2.59 meters, he was an obstacle that his opponents could hardly pass.

In a college season , he scored 11.2 on average block and was 1,985 in the NBA Draft by the Washington Bullets selected at 31 point. In the same year Bol joined the Rhode Island Gulls in the United States Basketball League and was called to the All-USBL First Team .

NBA

At that time, Bol was the greatest NBA basketball player to date, but was initially considered a curiosity due to his skinny stature (he weighed only 91 kilograms). Although he had difficulties both offensively and defensively against the opposing center, some of which were 50 kilograms heavier, Bol blocked 397 opposing throw attempts in his debut season, which was the NBA record at the time. For this performance he was immediately elected to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team .

Bol established himself as the center of the Bullets, scoring 4 points, 5 rebounds and 4 blocks per game . Mostly he was a substitute for Moses Malone . When the Bullets won Muggsy Bogues , who was only 1.60 meters long, in 1987 , they had the tallest and smallest player in NBA history in their squad. Accordingly, the photographers Bol and Bogues often wanted to take pictures together.

In his later stints in Golden State and Philadelphia , Bol played the substitute for Rod Higgins and Armon Gilliam, respectively. Bol created strange scenes when he increasingly developed a good three-point throw. He was so much bigger than the construction players covering him that he didn't even have to jump when throwing long-range.

In the autumn of his career, the extremely skinny Bol got increasingly knee problems, which increasingly shortened his playing time. At the age of 32, Bol left the Miami Heat , played in the US CBA league and in Italy before finally retiring from professional basketball. With 3.3 blocks per game, he is the second best shot blocker in NBA history after Mark Eaton ; its 0.179 blocks per minute is even an NBA record.

Private

He came from a rural area of ​​Sudan and, following the customs of his Dinka tribe, had ritual head wounds and part of his teeth removed as a teenager.

Kevin Mackey, then coach at Cleveland State University, who tried to get Bol on his team and was involved in bringing him to the United States in 1983, later claimed that Bol's birthday was unknown at the time, and that Bol himself did not know him either . Mackey then set the date for October 16, 1962, he said in November 2017. He assumed that Bol was actually older, but had chosen a younger date so as not to block his way to university. Mackey reckoned that Bol could possibly have been over 40 or even 50 years old during his NBA stint.

Bol married in 1991 and had four children with his first wife, but divorced on his return to Sudan in 1997. In 1998 he married his second wife Ajok, from this marriage comes a son, Bol Bol . His son Madut played basketball at Southern University in the United States until 2013 , and his son Bol Bol, born in 1999, became a professional basketball player like his father.

During his time as a professional basketball player in the USA, Bol invested part of his salary in houses in California and Maryland , which turned out to be just as little profitable investment as the money he put in a local in Washington, DC .

During his career, Bol was known for its humanitarian work. After his return to Sudan in 1997, the government made him an offer to take up the post of Minister of Sport. Bol refused, because the rulers wanted him to convert from Christianity to Islam beforehand. In his home country, Bol campaigned, among other things, for the interests of children and the construction of non-denominational schools. According to the Hartford Courant newspaper , Bol put at least $ 3.5 million into his own foundation as well as the Sudanese People's Liberation Army . He also supported family members financially and lost a large part of his fortune.

In 2001 he experienced a serious personal crisis when the Sudanese government classified him as a traitor and refused to leave the country, but in the same year he finally managed to escape. He tried to return to the US but was stuck in Cairo for several months . In 2002 he finally returned to the USA, lived in humble circumstances and received financial support from a refugee aid organization. In 2004 Bol suffered serious injuries in a traffic accident. Bol also contributed to the development of today's Sudanese NBA pro Luol Deng . When Deng's family were refugees from the civil war in Cairo, Bol trained basketball with his older brothers, but Luol Deng himself only later became interested in the sport.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manute Bol. Retrieved April 26, 2020 (English).
  2. ↑ a b Manute Bol, NBA basketball player, dies at 47 . The Washington Post. Retrieved June 20, 2010.
  3. ↑ Former center Manute Bol dies at age 47 . NBA.com. Archived from the original on June 21, 2010. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 20, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nba.com
  4. ↑ a b c LYNNE TUOHY: FOR MANUTE BOL, A HARROWING COMEBACK . In: THE HARTFORD COURANT . March 31, 2002.
  5. ^ Charles Ross: Manute Bol: A Freak Show in the NBA, a Hero in Sudan. In: Medium. December 17, 2015, accessed April 23, 2019 .
  6. ↑ APBR.org: HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES BASKETBALL LEAGUE , by Chris Anderson, Robert Bradley and John Grasso, accessed March 9, 2010
  7. ↑ Ex-coach says he made up Manute Bol's birthday: He could've been '40 or 50 'in NBA. Retrieved April 23, 2019 .
  8. ↑ a b c MICHAEL LUO: Manute Bol Back in US - as a Refugee . In: Los Angeles Times . August 25, 2002.
  9. ↑ Caroline Burke: Bol Bol's Parents, Manute Bol & Ajok Kuag: 5 Fast Facts to Know. In: Heavy.com. March 29, 2019, accessed April 23, 2019 .
  10. ↑ NBA Draft 2019: Bol Bol, son of former NBAer Manute Bol, declares for draft, report says. Retrieved April 23, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Fairfield County Hall of Fame Honors Manute Bol. In: Sudan Sunrise. October 19, 2016. Retrieved April 23, 2019 (American English).
  12. ↑ Kelli Anderson: Manute Bol Once the NBA's premier shot blocker, the Sudanese Sultan of Swat has tried to bring peace to his homeland. Retrieved April 23, 2019 .
  13. ^ Sudan's NBA giant . October 29, 2001 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed April 23, 2019]).
  14. ↑ Manute Bol 1962-2010 - Sudan Tribune: Plural news and views on Sudan. Retrieved April 23, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Deng: A real-life globetrotter making it in the NBA . USA Today. Retrieved June 20, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Bol, Manute
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Sudanese basketball player
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Gogrial , Sudan
DATE OF DEATH June 19, 2010
Place of death Charlottesville , Virginia