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Par Joël Pütz | Journaliste sportif
Before his son Bol Bol became a hotly debated subject within the NBA, Manute Bol also left his mark on the league during his career. But in a completely different vein, as the former center’s age was reportedly falsified upon his arrival in the United States… and he was therefore much older than previously thought.
If some people wonder why Shaquille O’Neal keeps comparing Bol Bol to Victor Wembanyama when the young Suns center is clearly not at the same level, it’s perhaps because the Big Diesel knew his father. And the latter was definitely no stranger to the league fans since Manute Bol became an NBA legend in his own way, towering at… 2m29, no less.
A two-time league best blocker, even averaging 5 blocks per game during his rookie season (!), the Sudanese died in 2010, officially at the age of 47. We say officially, because the actual age of the center has always been the subject of rumors… Kevin Mackey, who had brought him to the United States to join Cleveland State University where he coached, is also the first to admit that there was a valid reason to that.
Manute Bol much older than announced when he arrived in the NBA?
Having become a scout for the Pacers in the meantime, Mackey made a totally crazy confession about the Hall of Famer in 2017, during an interview with ZAGSBLOG:
I gave him his birthday because they didn’t know how old he was. Bol had no idea of his age, and the kid who came over with him didn’t know how old he was.
No one knew how old he was. 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. Every athletic door is open at 19; every athletic door is closed when you’re 35. He was probably 40, 50 years old when he was playing in the NBA.
With little information available about the young giant, Mackey preferred to maximize his chances of joining the the NBA, firmly believing in the big man’s potential. The theory that Bol was over 50 at some point in his career was also corroborated by Jayson Williams, his teammate on the Sixers:
He used to say that he was 35 years old, but I used to be on the bench looking at all the circles and scars around his head, and I asked him one day, ‘Manute, what are those scars on your head?’ And he says, ‘Well, the white man lost my birth certificate in the jungle, so every five years I take a rock and I slice one across my head.’ I was like, ‘All right,’ and then I started looking at it the next game, and I said, ‘Holy shit, Manute Bol is 55 years old.’
