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The NBA has been home to some impossibly tall human beings over the decades, but the bar was literally raised when the 7’7″ Manute Bol made his debut with the team then known as the Washington Bullets in 1985. He harnessed his fascinatingly lanky frame to become a shot-blocking machine and did pretty well for himself in the league—especially when you consider he may not have been sober when he stepped onto the court.
Bol (who is technically tied with Gheorghe Mureșan for the title of “Tallest Player in NBA History”) was born in Sudan and played basketball there as a teenager. In the early 1980s, Farleigh Dickinson coach Don Feeley headed to the country to work with its national team and understandably urged the then-unknown to take his talents to the United States.
The big man faced plenty of issues when he arrived in America, as he didn’t speak English and lacked a birth certificate and other documentation that he needed to join a Division I basketball program.
In 1984, he played his one and only college season at the University of Bridgeport and ultimately declared for the 1985 NBA Draft. His skills still left a bit to be desired, but Washington opted to embrace the “You Can’t Teach Height” mentality before scooping him up with the 31st overall pick.
There were plenty of issues the franchise had to address—including the fact that Bol tipped the scales at a whopping 180 pounds (for the sake of comparison, Mureșan weighed around 315 lbs.) and wasn’t strong enough to add any weight to the bar if he was tasked with pumping out 10 reps on the bench press.
However, he eventually figured out a somewhat unconventional strategy that helped him pack on and maintain his weight.
Manute Bol relied on a steady diet of beer to keep his weight up—even on days he was playing
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When you’re as big as Bol was, you burn a lot of calories by simply existing, and that issue is only exacerbated by the demands that come with being a professional basketball player who averaged around 20 minutes per game in their prime.
Anyone who’s spent time in college is probably aware there’s no better way to pack on the pounds than drinking what most medical professionals would describe as an “unhealthy” amount of beer, and based on what one of Bol’s teammates had to say about their time playing together, he took advantage of that reality to bulk up a bit.
In 1990, Bol was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers and found himself sharing a locker room with Jayson Williams (a man probably best known for serving more than two years in prison for accidentally shooting and killing a limo driver in 2002).
In 2016, Williams sat down with Vice Sports for a podcast where he reflected on the two seasons he played alongside Bol in Philly. While most NBA teams understandably frown upon players drinking before a contest, the 76ers were apparently willing to let Manute do what he felt was best for his game, which apparently involved sucking down as much Heineken as he pleased:
“They used to let Manute Bol drink the whole time, so he would drink Heinekens all day long to help put on weight, so Manute Bol never played sober in one basketball game.
He used to put on all his clothes last, so what he would do, after he got out of the shower, he would put on his socks, and then that was it—and he would just walk around the locker room naked drinking Heinekens.”
It’s only crazy if it doesn’t work, and it seemed to work out pretty well for Manute Bol.