Byline: Tim Wilkin Staff writer
The lines, oh yes, George Bell has heard every one of them.
How's the weather up there?
Yuk, yuk, yuk.
What, you got stilts inside your pants?
Yuk, yuk, yuk.
Hey, man, is it snowing yet?
Yuk, yuk, yuk.
OK, you get the idea. George Bell is a big guy. Strike that. George Bell is a huge guy. Sunday he was unveiled at the Washington Avenue Armory, along with 16 others, as the Albany Patroons began their Continental Basketball Association free-agent tryout at the Washington Avenue Armory.
Everyone at the Armory was looking at Bell, the biggest professional basketball player in the United States. He is 7-foot-8. Yes, from head to toe, there's 92 inches of him.
That's four inches taller than Ralph Sampson or Mark Eaton.
He towers over Kareem by six inches.
Patrick Ewing is a shrimp, seven inches smaller.
He even has Manute Bol by two inches.
Bell is so big you get the impression he could walk out of the Armory, take one step right and his next step would land him in Schenectady.
But don't expect Bell to be an overnight sensation.
At the age of 28, he is a relative newcomer to basketball. He played at three different colleges, earning his best marks at Biola University in La Mirada, Calif., in 1981-82. He averaged five points a game. He never played in high school because he was ill with a hormonal problem. Because of it, he grew to his current humongous proportions.
Since then, getting used to his size has been his biggest adjustment.
All his clothes are custom-made.
Normal beds are out.
You won't see him driving a Volkswagen.
'I don't have to have a special car, any large car is fine,' he said. 'I put it this way. I never ride in a small car, period, because if I have an accident, I'm lost, I'm done.'
The question then, is what is George Bell doing here? His size alone should send him directly to the National Basketball Association.
But you won't get that from him. An intelligent, thought-provoking man, Bell knows he's never going to get a plaque in Springfield, Mass. His ability isn't awesome.
'I'm not saying this to put myself down,' Bell said, 'but I know I'm not a great ballplayer. I'm not a pretty good player, either. I think I am a suitable player.'
It seems, though, that anyone Bell bumps into in life thinks otherwise. Everywhere he goes, he hears it.
'I would say that 99.9 percent of the people that see me say that I must be a basketball player,' he said. 'It's like they say, 'I know you got to be playing ball. I'm not being prejudiced, but it seems everyone thinks that all tall black men - white ones, too - have to play basketball.
'Is that a law? Of course not,' he said. 'Is there a law that every fat person has to be in the circus? I'm tired of being stereotyped, and this is a bum stereotype.'
Bell said he can understand why people view his size with curiosity. But he has grown tired of it. He tells of how he leads a normal American life.
His wife of 3 1/2 years lives with their baby daughter in Durham, North Carolina. He has three sisters and a brother - none of whom are nearly as big as he. His mother lives in Virginia.
A normal existence. Except for the height.
Bell, who wears size 19 sneakers (which are four sizes smaller than Bob Lanier's) lives with his size and accepts it. And now he wants a shot at pro basketball. He was cut earlier this month by the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers after only a couple of days in training camp.
This journey will be the last for Bell, as far as a career in basketball is concerned. He talks of wanting to one day play in the NBA, but he won't allow those thoughts to dominate him.
If he fails in this quest, he'll walk away from the sport.
'Some people don't understand there are other things in life besides basketball,' he said. 'Tall people can do a lot of other things, you know?'
Out of basketball, Bell said he does promotional work for a district sporting goods store in Durham and also works with juvenile delinquents.
Besides being tall, Bell also has bulk. He weighs 300 pounds. At practice Sunday, he wasn't a dominating presence. He ran the floor well enough, but there were no roof-rattling dunks. He didn't get every rebound. He only had a couple of blocked shots.
Former Siena center Kevin Brown was checking Bell at one point of the late-afternoon scrimmage, and he looked like a munchkin compared to him. Brown is 7-feet tall.
'George made me feel small out there,' Brown said. 'He was tough inside; he can move. I thought he would be slower than he was. He can run.'
Growing up in North Carolina, Bell suffered through his adolescent years. At the age of 11, he was 5-foot-9. Then he developed a tumor in his pituitary gland. Excessive hormones were excreted, and he grew and grew and grew.
While being treated for the disorder, he lost 50 percent of his sight (which he later regained), had chronic knee problems and continuous headaches. By the time the problem was corrected, he was 18 years old and 7-foot-6.
'It was rough on me, it was very difficult physically,' he said. 'It was hard growing up and watching everyone else play sports and I couldn't do it because I was sick.'
Now he is well. This year is his first venture into basketball in three years. In that time he had three knee operations (not related to his condition as a youth) and had a tumor removed from a saliva gland.
Bell said it was important for him to get his life together physically before attempting to become a basketbll player. His last basketball came with the Harlem Magicians, a poor man's version of the Harlem Globetrotters.
He comes to the Patroons as a free agent, and he knows there is much to learn.
Bell tells of how he never had any real direction in the game. He said his first good instruction came at Biola University. Before that he was on his own.
'We are just trying to let him get the experience to play, that is what he needs,' said Gerald Oliver, the Patroons director of player personnel, who met Bell years ago in California. 'Scrimmaging is the best thing in the world for him right now.
'He needs work, and we'll give it to him,' he said. 'Individually, we'll get together with him and work on body balance and things like that.'
Albany coach George Karl knows this is an experiment. Sunday was his first peek at Bell and it's too early to pass judgment. Bell could be a factor here.
'We have to be patient with him,' he said. 'There is an awkwardness to him but that kind of awkwardness has been successful and intimidating. I mean, Manute (Bol) can really mess a game up with the things he can do. Look at Eaton. He is now a bona fide top center in the NBA because of his size.'
Bell will probably never be in that class.
The chance, though, had to be taken.
'It's tough to say anything after one day,' Karl said. 'He really hasn't ever played against anyone that has had a lot of pro experience. He was better in the second session than the first. We just want him to get better every day.'
For Bell, all he wants is the chance to improve. He'll be here for the regular training camp. He was in the tryout only for the extra work.
He tells you he's willing to work hard, to do anything the Patroons tell him. Even though his game is way behind everyone else, it might not be too late for him.
'If this doesn't work out, if this is the end, I won't worry about it,' Bell said. 'Life will go on. I might not sound like I love it like other guys, but I want to make it. But I've been around too, I've had my downfalls and I have coped.
'I mean, I am going to have to handle this (size) for the rest of my life, until the day I die,' he said. 'I'll be OK.'
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