In a part of North Carolina where jagged peaks are taken for granted, a mountain of a man inspires curiosity and wonder.
Kenny George, a redshirt sophomore center from Chicago Latin who plays for UNC Asheville, is the tallest player in college basketball this season and one of the tallest ever. George stands 7 feet 7 inches and weighs 365 pounds.
George is blot-out-the-sun enormous, from a head that nearly touches the bottom of the net to his size-25 shoes. As a basketball player, George has fine potential and major problems.
“I’m not great or anything,” he said. “I’m just trying to find a groove.”
Sometimes he finds it. He can dunk a basketball flat-footed. George blocked seven shots in 14 minutes, grabbed seven rebounds and dunked four times last weekend against Liberty.
“He’s one of the biggest human beings I’ve ever seen,” said Coastal Carolina coach Buzz Peterson. “Remember when you had a Nerf goal hanging on your door as a kid? When George gets the ball near the basket, he looks like a kid dunking a Nerf ball into a Nerf goal.”
But it can be painful watching George shuffle downcourt. He can’t keep up with a fast-paced game. He doesn’t start for UNC Asheville and plays a few minutes at a time before getting winded. He has played just eight games in his college career.
George also has a history of knee injuries. If he is to make the NBA like 7-7 players Manute Bol or Gheorghe Muresan once did, he must improve dramatically.
“The only question on Kenny George is his health,” said Eddie Biedenbach, the UNC Asheville coach who lured George from Chicago and is patiently trying to mold him into a big-time force at his small school.
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“Back, knees, feet–so many things can be problems for big men.”
Biedenbach would know. He understands the frustrations and flourishes that a big man provides for a basketball team, having played with Wilt Chamberlain in the NBA, recruited Tom Burleson to N.C. State and coached a half-dozen 7-footers at UNC Asheville.
George originally made a verbal commitment to Valparaiso, but he soured on the school. Biedenbach found him in Chicago with the help of a former coach he knew and persuaded George to come to the mountains.
George is a work in progress. His growth accelerated because of an overactive pituitary gland, he said. He has played little basketball since his senior year in high school, when he suffered the first of two dislocated kneecaps.
But when George gets on the court, he sometimes changes the game. He blocked five shots against Virginia, including three in a 10-second span.
Perhaps because George is so raw and unknown, the stands generally hum with anticipation when he checks in.
“In Louisville when he went into the game,” Biedenbach said, “it was like Babe Ruth coming to bat.”
George tries to model himself after his favorite player, Tim Duncan. He is an avid student of film and would like to work in the industry one day.