Remembering Bol

Hearing that former NBA center Manute Bol died, Saturday, resurrected nearly forgotten memories for me.

Bol was playing in Philadelphia when I was a beat writer covering the Utah Jazz in the early 1990s, so I saw him in person twice a year. He always entertained me. Not just his matchstick figure, but his sense of humor. He would drift down court, later than anyone else, and stand at the top of the 3-point arc, calling for the ball. When he would get it, fans would call “Shoot!”

And he would — despite the fact he was 7-foot-7. He didn’t care. He was there to entertain. The man shot 205 three-pointers in his career.

My strongest memory of Bol, though, is one that could have become an overblown incident. Steve Brown, the longtime Jazz TV personality, and I were in the hallway at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, outside the Jazz locker room one night. Down the hall came Bol. As Brown and I talked, we glanced up and nodded as he passed.

Who doesn’t look up when a 7-7 guy walks past?

Bol said, “What are you white boys looking at?”

There are a lot of people who would have considered that unacceptable, and it probably was. But it made us both laugh. Bol chuckled, too, then strode on.

That’s the sad part of today’s world. Sometimes one mistake, one misspoken or offhand phrase, can ruin a person’s reputation. Bol was being a wise guy or a jokester, but that’s probably all it was. I didn’t write anything about it, because I considered it just kidding. In today’s “everything’s public” climate, it may have been world news.

Since his retirement, I heard from time to time of his humanitarian work in his native Sudan, how he spent most of his fortune helping feed the hungry and build schools.

Some would have me remember him for an off-hand remark that may have been insensitive, but not mean spirited.

I’ll remember him for what he did for his country and his friends.