• You know, a lot of people feel sorry for him, because he’s so tall and awkward. But I’ll tell you this – if everyone in the world was a Manute Bol, it’s a world I’d want to live in.
• Charles Barkley • Noting how great a person Manute Bol, who died today at 47, was. Bol, a Sudanese-born NBA player whose 7’7″ rail-thin frame made him one of the most unique basketball stars in history, was suffering from long-standing kidney and skin problems. He was something of an ambassador to Sudan and spent much of his personal fortune trying to help the war-torn country. He went broke doing it. This is a man who cared so much about helping the people of his country that he would rather use his fame and freak-show status to help them than live comfortably. A huge loss. source

• 
• A musician firstDean, who died last night at 81, started his career as a country musician. His biggest hit, “Big Bad John,” went to the top of the charts in 1961. He later became an actor, and even starred in a James Bond movie.

  Crimes committed in his nameLater, he got into the sausage-making business, building a popular brand off his image. Eventually, he sold his company to Sara Lee, who eventually got sick of this old man hanging around and kicked him out. Then they started making crap like the stuff to the left. Pancakes? Sausages? Chocolate chips? At least now that he’s dead, he can roll in his grave. source

• The guy is synonymous with college basketball. The former UCLA coach, who won ten titles helming the Bruins over 27 years, died today at 99. Some other key stats about the dude:

• 19 number of conference titles Wooden won over his tenure
• 88 number of games Wooden won in a row over four seasons
• three number of All-American honors he earned as a player source

Off-the-court pride

• I think that’s the factor from which i have received the greatest satisfaction and pleasure. The fact that practically all of my players did get their degrees and practically all of them have done well in whatever their chosen profession might be.
• John Wooden • Regarding what he was most proud of in his basketball coaching career. He’s from a different era – an era where players went to school the whole term. Wooden might as well be chiseled out of history. The legend earned his place in basketball history the old-fashioned way. Through hard work. source

• Of all the bad hands people have been dealt in life, of the people who I have known up close, compared to the starving in Mongolia, Gary had as about a rotten combination as anything I’d seen.  I won’t give the details, but there was very much a horrifying tragedy about his life, a desperation that I think at age 16, was too big for us his classmates to comprehend or take in.
• Blogger Richard Rushfield • Regarding his former high school classmate, Gary Coleman, who died on Friday. Rushfield makes it clear that Coleman’s great tragedy is that he was forced into a lifestyle that wasn’t normal and milked him of his fortune, but more importantly, of a normal life. “As I grew older and watched now from afar, the reports his life get stranger and stranger, it became more clear how much what had happened in those days had cost him,” Rushfield writes. source

• The play gave Coleman a tribute, complete with weeping. “Avenue Q” has gotten a lot of mileage out of making fun of Gary Coleman over the years, a fate which looked fraught with controversy in the wake of his death. But despite that, the show went on with him last night, and it looks like it’ll continue to go on with him. “After watching it tonight, I would miss him too much,” said the play’s book writer, Jeff Whitty. “Personally, I would miss him terribly.” source

• 4.8% of all tweets were about Coleman’s death source

• I’m sorry I had to take Gary Coleman. But damn if I’m not going to make him say ‘What’choo talkin bout, Jesus?’ when he gets here.
• The Twitter account @Jesus_M_Christ • Who’s been kind of a jerk about Gary Coleman’s very sad situation. The person behind the Jesus parody account has posted nine tweets in the last two days with the kind of black humor we can’t get behind. This tweet is pretty bad, but it’s nowhere near as bad as this one. Look, Coleman has famously been the butt of jokes (there’s a character in “Avenue Q” who parodies his depressing fate) but now isn’t the time. Seriously. source