Giants Among Men

Robert Wadlow, the Alton Giant, died on July 15, 1940, at twenty-two years of age. He still tops the chart as the world's tallest man at 8' 11.1" tall. When he was born he weighed a normal 8 ½ pounds and was normal length. By the age of four his rapid growth had begun and was 5' 4" tall, by age eight he was over six feet tall. It appears he continued to grow up until the time of his death, growing 1 ½ inches the last year of his life.

Why do I tell you this, you ask?

Prior to my move to Missouri and during one of my visits I was taken on a little tour of local spots of interest. Included on the itinerary was a visit to Alton, IL, just over the river from St. Louis, to see the statue of Robert Wadlow – World's Tallest Man. So today when noticing it was the sixth-ninth anniversary of his death, it reminded me of that visit, and got me to thinking in terms of tall people.

Tall, I guess, is the norm for basketball players and so naturally the taller and tallest would gravitate to this sport more than likely. You have the Ming's; Sun Ming Ming at 7' 9" as the Tallest Basketball player and Yao Ming at 7' 6" as Tallest current NBA player. Kenny George at 7' 8" gets the title as Tallest American basketball player. Even so there are still a lot of inches separating them from Robert Wadlow's almost nine feet in height.

In poking around my fun facts sheet I found a few more stat's that you might find interesting:

Tallest American Football Player in NFL history – Richard Metcalfe 7' 0"

Tallest Baseball player in Major League Baseball – Jon Rauch 6' 11"

Tallest First Class Cricket player – Will Jefferson 6' 10"

Tallest Tennis Player on ATP Tour– Ivo Karlovic 6' 10"

Tallest Player in National Hockey League history – Zdeno Chara 6' 9"

Tallest Golfer on PGA Tour – Phil Blackmar 6' 7"

Tallest Female Volleyball Player – Nelly Alisheva – 6' 9"

And wrapping it all up with a couple of Hollywood's favorites: James Cromwell at 6' 7", Tallest Academy Award nominated actor, with Tim Robbins at 6' 5", being the Tallest Academy Award winning actor.

So there you have it, the long and short of it! Well, that's not exactly correct – there you have it, the tall of it!