Manute Bol may have been in his 50s when he played in NBA, college coach says

Manute Bol played in the NBA from 1985 to 1995 before retiring at the age of 32, or so we thought.

It turns out Bol may have been the oldest player to ever play in the NBA. Kevin Mackey, the former Cleveland State coach who recruited Bol and brought him to the United States from Sudan, now claims to have made up his birthday.

"I gave him his birthday because they didn't know how old he was," Mackey told Zagsblog. “It was in October, I wanted to make it after Sept. 1. I wanted to make sure he was young enough because he didn’t have an age. I think he was [in his 40s], I really do. But there’s no way of ever really knowing.”

Mackey, who is currently a scout with the Indiana Pacers, said immigration officers didn't look into it since they were fans of Cleveland State basketball, but he did work with the immigration office to come up with a birthday for Bol, which ended up being Oct. 16, 1962.

“The immigration people were in the office [at Cleveland State] and they thought it was great,” Mackey said. “They loved it. And they were big fans of Cleveland State, they used to come to all our games. They wanted to cover themselves because Manute was starting to get so much publicity. His picture was in the paper. He was on the 6 o’clock news because he was a such a different looking guy than everyone else. At that time, no one had ever seen anything like it."

Bol never qualified for enrollment at Cleveland State because he had trouble speaking English, and he ended up going to the University of Bridgeport. He was then drafted by the Washington Bullets in 1985 and later played for the Warriors, 76ers and Heat.

“Every athletic door is open at 19, every athletic door is closed when you’re 35. He was probably 40, 50 years old when he was playing in the NBA,” Mackey said.

Bol passed away in 2010 supposedly at the age of 47, but if Mackey is right, Bol could have actually made his NBA debut at that age and played well into his 50s, which would be a pretty amazing feat to add to NBA history.