A footnote in CHL history – November 16, 2002

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – As publicity stunts go, this one was huge – seven feet, seven inches to be exact.
 
For fans of the Indianapolis Ice, the weekend series against the Amarillo Gorillas, the second and third games of a six-game home stand, would not only provide two entertaining contests, each decided by a shoot out. On Saturday night, they witnessed something never seen before or since in the history of the Central Hockey League, or professional hockey for that matter.
 

Earlier in the week, Ice General Manager Larry Linde signed 40-year-old former NBA shot-blocker Manute Bol to a one-day contract to both attract attention to his team, but also to assist Bol’s efforts to raise money and awareness of conditions in his home country of Sudan which was embroiled in a savage civil war.
 
It is believed that the 7’, 7”, 225-pound Bol held the distinction of being the tallest player under contract in the history of professional hockey. He was definitely the only one who had killed a lion with a spear.
Bol was a 1985 second-round draft pick of the Washington Bullets. He played 11 seasons in the NBA with four teams, blocking more shots per minute than anyone in league history. He retired from in 1995 after averaging 4.2 rebounds per game and 2.6 points during his career.
Donating almost all the money he earned during his NBA career, Bol made it his life purpose to help the crisis and genocide in Sudan. He had been very active among famine relief organizations and also established his own charitable foundation, the Ring True Foundation, which aided the orphaned “lost boys” of Sudan.
5,859 seats were sold at Conseco Fieldhouse for Saturday night’s game, the most attended game of the season. Banners publicizing the toll-free number for the Ring True Foundation hung from the upper levels of the arena.
Not long after lacing them up, Bol’s arthritic feet began to swell inside his custom-made size 16 1/2 ice skates. He precariously took to the ice during the pre-game warm-ups but he didn’t venture out during team introductions and watched the game’s opening minutes from a stool placed on the end of the bench with his skates lying at his feet.
By the end of the first period, Bol was out of uniform and sitting at a table, signing photos of himself in hockey gear. The good-natured Dinka Tribesman seemed to have enjoyed his time on the ice.
“It was good,” Bol said, laughing.”It’s the first time I got up close to the rink. It’s a beautiful game.”
The game itself went wrong very quickly for the Ice, who were down 3-1 after the first frame. They would eventually tie it up, only to lose 5-4 in a shoot out. Bol’s appearance, which would become a footnote in the history of the Indianapolis Ice and the CHL, served its purpose as a publicity and fund-raising effort.
The next day, Bol’s hockey “career” was over. His ice skates, hockey stick and other equipment from his appearance with the Ice were auctioned off to raise money for his Ring True Foundation. Bol went on to other ventures, continuing continued to use his celebrity, as well as public curiosity about his size, to bring awareness to the plight of his native land.
 
In July 2004, Bol was seriously injured in a car accident, breaking his neck when the taxi he was riding in hit a guardrail and overturned. He recovered and continued to work tirelessly for his homeland.
 
Bol was hospitalized in May after returning to the United States from Sudan where he was helping build a school with Sudan Sunrise, a group based in Kansas. He passed away on Saturday at age 47.
 
Bol will be remembered in many ways – as a Dinka tribesman, basketball star, husband and father and even as a professional hockey player for a day, but his greatest legacy was as a humanitarian.
 
“God guided me to America and gave me a good job,” he told Sports Illustrated in 2004. “But he also gave me a heart so I would look back.”
 
Contact the author at robert.keith@prohockeynews.com