Manute Bol is the owner of some pretty amazing history. He’s tied with Gheorghe Mureșan as the tallest player in NBA history. He’s also the most significant player to have more career blocks than points. But he might also own another amazing record: the oldest NBA player in league history.
Bol’s former college coach Kevin Mackey says he gave Bol the birthday long associated with the Sudanese basketball player, which means he could actually have been much older than initially thought.
The New York Daily News reported Thursday about a blog that featured an interview with the former Cleveland State basketball coach and current Pacers scout that explained how Mackey gave Bol his birthday when he recruited Bol to Cleveland in 1985.
“I gave him his birthday because they didn’t know how old he was,” Mackey, currently a scout with the Indiana Pacers, told ZAGSBLOG. “It was in October, I wanted to make it after Sept. 1. I wanted to make sure he was young enough because he didn’t have an age. I think he was [IN HIS 40S], I really do. But there’s no way of ever really knowing.”
Mackey said immigration didn’t seem to look too much into things because, as it turns out, they were big basketball fans.
“The immigration people were in the office [at Cleveland State] and they thought it was great,” Mackey said. “They loved it. And they were big fans of Cleveland State, they used to come to all our games. They wanted to cover themselves because Manute was starting to get so much publicity. His picture was in the paper. He was on the 6 o’clock news because he was a such a different looking guy than everyone else. At that time, no one had ever seen anything like it.”
Bol died in 2010, supposedly at the age of 47. But if Mackey is right, and Bol is much older, he actually made his NBA debut at that age and played significantly longer: even into his 50s. It would be an amazing feat, and one that perhaps suggests the bias against older players still capable of contributing on the court later in life.
“Every athletic door is open at 19, every athletic door is closed when you’re 35,” Mackey said, “He was probably 40, 50 years old when he was playing in the NBA.”
Bol’s son, Bol Bol, is likely to follow in his father’s footsteps and play college and maybe even pro ball. If he does, he’ll enter the NBA decades earlier than Manute.
