MOOSEHEART — March 7, 2005 - When a gawky 7-foot, 7-inch tall African tribesman named Manute Bol came to play basketball in the United States some 25 years ago, the experts promised that he'd never succeed.

At a cartoonishly thin 185 lbs., there was no way he could compete with the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Moses Malone and Patrick Ewing, they said.

"People laughed at me because I was skinny," Bol recalls. "But I told them that my heart was bigger than my body."

And he was right. Both because of and in spite of his gangly physique, Bol lasted more than a decade in the NBA, setting records for blocked shots and earning a reputation as a tenacious defender.

Along the way, he managed to learn English and earn enough money to send more than $3.5 million to his fellow Dinka tribesmen in the war-torn African country of the Sudan.

"If you want to achieve your goals," he told more than 200 students at the Mooseheart school Monday afternoon, "there's nobody that can stop you."

The former basketball star's talk capped a day long-visit to Mooseheart, the residential school for needy kids run by the Loyal Order of the Moose. A member of the Moose lodge himself in his adopted hometown of Hartford, Conn., Bol volunteered to visit with Mooseheart students after becoming acquainted with the school's mission.

Speaking in a thickly-accented English, he regaled the audience with stories from his unlikely basketball career, including the time when he chipped his teeth on the rim during a slam dunk and the minor-league basketball game when he blocked an unheard-of 18 shots.

More importantly, though, he stressed the ideals of gratitude, hard work and friendship.

He says the support of his friends — including former teammates Charles Barkley and Chris Mullin — helped him persevere after a horrific taxi crash last June in Hartford.

Bol was thrown from the vehicle and spent three weeks in a coma and six months in the hospital recovering from massive internal injuries, a broken neck, a shattered kneecap and a mangled hand.

"I'm walking now," he said, "only because of the people who were praying for me."

And despite lingering pain and decreased mobility (he now has trouble standing for long periods of time and relies on a 5-foot cane to walk), Bol says he has nothing but gratitude for the life he's led.

"If I stayed in the Sudan, I'd probably be dead," he said, referring to the two-decade long civil war that has killed more than 1 million people there. "I have led a blessed life."

And no matter what adversity students here might be facing, he said, they should feel just as lucky.

"The kids in Africa, they have no shoes, no clothes and no food," he said. "They have no chance at an education.

"Here in America you get all that provided for you — all you have to do is go to school and work hard."

Manute Bol spoke for more than a half-hour to the Mooseheart student body - stressing, in part, that the students should appreciate, and make the most of, "the opportunities that the Moose has given to you."

Manute Bol with two of his fellow Moose members from Chicopee Falls, MA Lodge 1849-Jim Grise (left), who is working as Bol's personal manager/agent; and Bruce Adams, Lodge 1849 Administrator. After Bol's appearance at Mooseheart School on Monday afternoon, March 7, Chicopee Falls hosted the Mooseheart basketball team in a trip that evening to the Chicago Bulls-vs.-Milwaukee Bucks game at the United Center in Chicago.

Manute Bol spoke informally to the Mooseheart School student body on March 7, with Superintendent of Education Gary Urwiler looking on. The 7'7" Bol, born a Dinka tribesmen in the Sudan, emigrated to the USA in the early 1980s and played 11 seasons with four different NBA teams. He retired in 1995, and joined the Moose at Chicopee Falls, MA Lodge 1849 last April. He still walks with a cane after suffering serious injuries in a taxicab accident last June 30.