The Dunking Dinka

Southern Sudan is an arid land of endless summer and sparse vegetation.  The Dinka people who live here are nomads who raise cattle and periodically move to better grazing areas.  The cattle, with two-foot long horns that rise straight up, are their lifeblood and are protected by male tribe members who sometimes use spears to fend off lions.

His name in the Dinka language means "special blessing" and was given to him because of his mother's earlier miscarriages.  He said he was born in 1963 although no documentation exists.  Descended from nobility, he lived a comfortable life and was able to afford a dowry of 80 cows for his wife's hand.  The Dinka are a tall, lean people and his family was, too:  Dad and Sis were 6'8" while Mom was 6'10".  Even compared to them he was tall at seven feet seven inches.

His cousin in Khartoum suggested he try basketball.  Disregarding his father's opinion that the sport wasn't appropriate work, he joined a police team despite having a congenetically clawed right hand.  When someone suggested he dunk he took one step, slammed the ball and hurt his teeth on the way down.  He was eventually spotted by an American coach, played college ball and became a player in the NBA for 10 seasons.

Manute Bol left for the states in 1983, the same year the Arab government implemented Sharia, or Islamic Law.  The cultural animosities between the Muslim leaders and the Christian Dinkas intensified with the implementation of a jihad, or holy war.  The oppression in Darfur is a result of this.

Bol's story was told after his death last month.  The gangly African was a committed Christian who spent his money trying to help Sudanese refugees.  As recounted by Jon A. Shields in The Wall Street Journal, "Most NBA cats go broke on cars, jewelry and groupies.  Manute Bol went broke building hospitals."  After his retirement from basketball he made money to give away by becoming an absurd clown posing as a jockey and hockey player; he once boxed William "Refrigerator" Perry, the massive former Chicago Bears lineman.  Through it all he maintained his legendary sense of humor.

Bol's Christian charity cost him his life.  He died from a painful skin disease contracted while doing relief work in Sudan.  But, as Shields put it, the "Christianity exemplified by Bol is rarely understood by sports journalists.  For all its interest in the intimate details of players' lives, the media has long been tone deaf to the way devout Christianity profoundly shapes some of them."

"Obituary titles for Bol, for example, described him as a humanitarian rather than a Christian.  The remarkable charity and personal character of other NBA players, including David Robinson, A.C. Green and Dwight Howard, are almost never explicitly connected to their own intense Christian faith.  They are simply good guys."

The world will miss Manute Bol, the dedicated Christian.

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