The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Breaking News => Topic started by: Tucker on June 19, 2010, 04:37:12 PM
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Manute Bol, the 7-foot-7 basketball sensation of the 1980s who played for the Washington Bullets, died Saturday at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, the Washington Post reported. He was 47.
The Post quoted his cousin, George Bol, as saying the Sudanese native suffered from internal bleeding from Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, a skin disease he contracted from a medicine he received in Africa.
TMZ Sports reported he was hospitalized in Virginia last month after suffering acute kidney failure.
http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2010/06/19/nba-player-manute-bol-dies/?test=latestnews
RIP.
I hated watching him play. He was so skinny that I thought he'd break a bone just by standing up.
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IIRC, this guy wound up damn near penniless trying to finance militias to fight Islamic radical militias.
RIP, Manute.
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IIRC, this guy wound up damn near penniless trying to finance militias to fight Islamic radical militias.
RIP, Manute.
Don't know who you're talking about ....but that right there makes him a fine fellow in my book.
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From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manute_Bol#Activism
Activism
Bol was very active in charitable causes throughout his career. In fact, he says he spent much of the money he made during a 10-year NBA career supporting various causes related to his war-ravaged nation of birth, Sudan.[14] He frequently visited Sudanese refugee camps, where he was treated like royalty. In 2001 Bol was offered a post as minister of sport by the Sudanese government. Bol, who is Christian, refused because one of the pre-conditions was converting to Islam.[15] Later Bol was hindered from leaving the country by the Sudanese government, who accused him of supporting the Dinka-led Christian rebels, the Sudan People's Liberation Army. The Sudanese government refused to grant him an exit visa unless he came back with more money. Assistance by supporters in the United States, including Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, raised money to provide Bol with plane tickets to Cairo, Egypt. After 6 months of negotiations with U.S. consulate officials regarding refugee status, Bol and his family were finally able to leave Egypt and return to the United States.[15]
Bol established the Ring True Foundation in order to continue fundraising for Sudanese refugees. He has given most of his fortune (an estimated $3.5 million) to their cause. In 2002, Fox TV agreed to broadcast the telephone number of his Ring True Foundation in exchange for Bol's agreement to appear on their Celebrity Boxing show. After the referee goaded, "If you guys don't box, you won't get paid," he scored a third-round victory over former football player William "The Refrigerator" Perry.
In the fall of 2002, Bol signed a one-day contract with the Indianapolis Ice of the Central Hockey League. Even though he couldn't skate, the publicity generated by his single game appearance helped to raise money to assist children in Sudan.[16] Bol also had a brief stint as a horse jockey for similar reasons.
In April 2005, he appeared for a ceremonial tip-off at a Chicago Bulls basketball game.
More recently, Bol has been involved in the April 2006 Sudan Freedom Walk, a three-week march from the United Nations building in New York to the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.. The event was organized by Simon Deng, a former Sudanese swimming champion (currently a lifeguard at Coney Island) who is a longtime friend of Bol. Deng, who was a slave for three years from the age of nine, is from another tribe in Southern Sudan. His Sudan Freedom Walk is especially aimed at finding a solution to the genocide in Darfur (western Sudan), but it also seeks to raise awareness of the modern day slavery and human rights abuses throughout Sudan. Bol spoke in New York at the start of the Walk, and in Philadelphia at a rally organized by former hunger striker Nathan Kleinman.
During his time in Egypt, Bol ran a basketball school in Cairo. One of his pupils was fellow Sudanese refugee and current Chicago Bulls player Luol Deng, the son of a former Sudanese cabinet minister. Deng later moved to the United States to further his basketball career, continuing a close relationship with Bol.
These incredible accomplishments have surpassed, in my opinion anything that he did in the NBA. Myself included, I truly wonder how many people would walk the walk that this incredible man would ever do in their lives. He may have never been an NBA All-star, but he definitely was the epitome of what a role model is supposed to be about, Charles Barkley notwithstanding.
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Thanks GOP. Great read.
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By the way, I apologize for leaving the entire section in rather than use the three paragraph limit, but in general since wikipedia is not a single source article, but rather an account that uses multiple sources for its content, I decided to leave it all in to make it easier for all of us.
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Odd. I was listening to a call in radio show last night discussing Stevens-Johnson Syndrome. Nasty stuff.
RIP Manute. I always did like him. He was so quiet.
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Odd. I was listening to a call in radio show last night discussing Stevens-Johnson Syndrome. Nasty stuff.
RIP Manute. I always did like him. He was so quiet.
Looked it up....and you're right, it is nasty stuff....also looked up a few pictures. I think I saw a guy with this many years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevens%E2%80%93Johnson_syndrome
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Looked it up....and you're right, it is nasty stuff....also looked up a few pictures. I think I saw a guy with this many years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevens%E2%80%93Johnson_syndrome
Did anybody happen to read the list of drugs that can cause this? :o :o :o
I thought he might have gotten it from some of the wall drug he got in the Sudan, and maybe he did...but that list has a lot of really common stuff on it!
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Did anybody happen to read the list of drugs that can cause this? :o :o :o
I thought he might have gotten it from some of the wall drug he got in the Sudan, and maybe he did...but that list has a lot of really common stuff on it!
Yeah, the dude that they were discussing about got it from an antibiotic.