Hi everyone:
This is more basketball related and some of the old timers on this list ( no 
names necessary) will probably find some of this info relevant.

Manute Bol's Fall From Grace
By DECLAN WALSH

KHARTOUM, Sudan, June 19 — Young men from the south of Sudan are shooting
hoops in a rundown court on a sweltering evening in downtown Khartoum. They
pound a cheap ball on the cracked tiles as a few hundred boys and girls
watch the game, shouting, chatting and flirting.

Hundreds of miles to the south the government is dropping bombs on their
homeland. But here, inside the walls of the Comboni basketball court, there
is refuge in familiarity.

After one boy hopelessly fluffs a layup, a man unfolds himself from his
seated position and strides onto the court. He is impossibly tall even for
a Dinka, the tallest of the southern tribes. The man calls for the ball,
lifts his long arms to the sky and tips the ball gently into the net. His
heels do not leave the ground. A swell of delight ripples through the
crowd, and then explodes into cheers as the man lifts his skinny arms in a
mock-superman gesture.

Manute Bol can still work a crowd and draw cheers on a basketball court,
but six years after his retirement from the National Basketball
Association, Bol's life off the court has taken some dire turns.

Many of his investments have gone bad. His knees and wrists often ache with
rheumatism and he is living a jobless existence on the wrong side of
Sudan's bitter, long-running civil war. His wife has left him and moved to
New Jersey with their four children. Bol lives now in a rented house in a
dusty suburb of Khartoum with two wives, one child and 14 relatives.

Some days, his joints hurt so much that Bol, who is 39, can barely walk.
Treatment is out of the question, because it is too expensive.

Apart from beds there is no furniture in Bol's house; it was all sold last
week to raise cash. Bol wants to return to the United States, to lay claim
to an N.B.A. pension (for which he may not be eligible for at least six
years) and perhaps to coach basketball. But the main reason is that he
wants to see his children. "I haven't seen my kids in four years," he said.
"I want to see them bad."

"I'm a nobody now," he said one day recently as he sat in a taxi speeding
across the Nile to go watch a basketball game, "but I'm still somebody for
my people. They still love me."

When Bol entered the N.B.A. in October 1985, he was the league's tallest
player ever. A wiry 7-foot-7, he was adept at swatting the ball away on
defense. He could make more mobile, athletic centers alter their shots to
avoid him. In his rookie season, Bol blocked 397 shots, a league record
that still stands.

In 10 years in the N.B.A., he played for a half-dozen teams, including the
Washington Bullets, the Golden State Warriors, the Miami Heat and the
Philadelphia 76ers. By the time he retired in 1995, Gheorghe Muresan,
another 7-foot-7 center, was also in the league.

Offense was never Bol's forte, although during a stretch with Golden State,
Coach Don Nelson encouraged Bol to take 3- point shots, for which he showed
an unexpected flair.

Bol's stature and his endearing personal tale — he grew up minding cattle
in a remote corner of Sudan before transforming himself into a backup
center in the world's most prestigious basketball league — brought him much
attention during his American career.

"Manute Bol is so skinny, to save money on road trips they just fax him
from city to city," Woody Allen once joked.

At the height of his career, Bol said he signed a $1.5 million contract
with the 76ers, and his income was augmented by sponsorship deals with
Nike, Kodak, Toyota and others. He spent money on luxury cars, fashionable
clothing and houses in Maryland, Egypt and Khartoum. He invested $500,000
on a Washington club, the Manute Bol Spotlight; run by a friend, the club
went bankrupt.

But Bol said most of his money went to the southern Sudanese. Among the
Dinka tribe, family extends to practically every identifiable relative.
Bol, who comes from a powerful Dinka dynasty, had thousands of relatives,
and many sought his help. Some of his money paid for cows for a dowry or
for a funeral.

He also spent millions on Sudan's 18- year-old civil war. The fight is
between the national government, dominated by Muslims from the north who
are ethnic Arabs, and rebels from the south who are African and have
Christian and traditional tribal beliefs.

The government in Khartoum started a violent drive against southern rebels
led by the Dinkas. Thousands of civilians, including people from Bol's
village, Turalei, fled their homes, ending up in refugee camps as far away
as Ethiopia. Bol visited the camps and tried to drum up support in America.
"People were in bad shape," he recalled. "You could only look at them one
time and not again."

Bol became an important financial backer of the rebels, the Sudan People's
Liberation Army. He paid for their Washington office and for a
$1,000-a-month lobbyist, among other things. Bol estimates that in all he
spent more than $3.5 million on the rebels.

Bol left the N.B.A. in 1995, and after playing briefly the following year
with a team in Italy, he moved to Kampala, Uganda. He invested $150,000 in
a business run by a cousin; it, too, went bankrupt. Then the Sudanese
government offered a peace settlement. One rebel leader, Riak Machar from
the Nuer tribe, agreed to the proposal, but the People's Liberation Army
refused. Bol surprised many Sudanese by siding with Machar. In 1997, he
suddenly left Kampala and flew to Khartoum.

The leaders of the People's Liberation Army saw Bol's decision as
treachery. Bol says he simply believed it was time to stop the civil war.
"I don't like the war," he said. "I used to, but not anymore."

The government saw Bol's decision to come to Khartoum as a propaganda coup.
"When Manute first came it was all over the papers," said Jacob Kauat, a
former basketball teammate in Sudan. "He was always guarded by four
bodyguards and you would have to wait for hours to meet him. And I was one
of his friends."

Several people said Bol had been promised a senior position in the
government, but it never materialized. Jobless and ignored, Bol started to
feel the strain.

He sold a house in Egypt and another in Khartoum. A home in the United
States was repossessed after he defaulted on payments. Bol is vague when
discussing his finances and how he is getting by without a job.

He wants to return to the United States with his second wife, Ajok, but it
is not clear whether the Sudanese government will let him leave. Bol is
confident that he will be granted an exit visa. "I don't see how they can
refuse me," he said.

But some of his friends fear that his departure may be seen as an
embarrassment to the government.

For now, Bol is bearing the responsibilities of a Dinka chief. He organizes
weddings and wakes, mediates disputes and offers advice to the young.

Bol said he does not regret the lost money and fame. After visiting the
United States, he said, he wants only to return to Turalei, his ancestral
village, and look after his cattle. "I would have a big, big farm," he
said. "Then we have no worries about money. If you have the cows, you have
the money."

First, though, the war must end, and so it may be a long time before the
cow herder goes home.

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