by Jordan Conn

The Atavist No. 6, July 2011

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Manute Bol was the first African-born player drafted into the NBA and, at seven foot seven inches, the tallest. In the 1980s and 90s he was also among the league’s most fearsome shot-blockers and its most beloved figures. Off the basketball court, however, Bol’s story was more remarkable than most fans ever knew. Activist, gambler, joker, rebel—Bol was a complex man whose fate was inextricably bound with that of the South Sudan, his homeland. On the eve of that new nation’s independence, writer Jordan Conn traveled to the Sudan to explore Bol’s remarkable path from Africa to the NBA, his rise to stardom and fall into obscurity, and his final role as a renowned humanitarian and hero to his people. Conn’s account is a funny and moving portrait of a man who lived a life befitting his outsized body.

Nathaniel Friedman, reviewing The Defender in The Wall Street Journal:

Bol legends have piled up over the years, and in the e-book “The Defender” Jordan Conn probes as necessary, interviewing Bol’s teammates, friends and family. As a child, he may have killed a lion; he quite possibly coined the phrase “my bad”; he certainly warned Congress about Osama bin Laden in 1993. Filtered through the American media, his later life—he died last year of kidney failure—was a sad mishmash of illness and publicity stunts, such as a 2002 bout with William “The Refrigerator” Perry on Fox’s “Celebrity Boxing.” (Bol won, wearing red shorts stitched with the nickname “Sudanese Freedom Fighter.”) The stunts were ridiculous—Manute playing ice hockey, Manute in jockey’s silks—but the proceeds went to the Southern Sudan rebels.

Read an excerpt of the story at Sports Illustrated’s SI.com, and check out their fantastic photo gallery with shots of Bol.