But as with many of the extremely tall basketball players before him  including Gheorghe Muresan, Manute Bol and Shawn Bradley  such size brings serious drawbacks. George’s joints are under considerable stress, and everything from buying shoes to going out with his friends can be difficult.

He is too tall to fit into a driver’s seat, so he does not have a driver’s license and must ask friends for rides. When the semester ends, his father drives 650 miles from Chicago, his hometown, to Asheville so George does not have to squeeze into an airplane seat.

“I don’t hate it, but there are times I wish that I weren’t so tall,” George said.

George grew up on the North Side of Chicago. His parents separated when he was 2 years old, and his father, Ken Sr., received primary custody of his only son. Although George was tall from an early age, he did not become interested in basketball until middle school.

“Basketball wasn’t what I was trying to bring him up to do, it just went in that direction,” Ken Sr. said.

George was on the varsity squad by his sophomore year at the Latin School of Chicago. “He was 6-11, huge for a kid that age, but even then he had exceptionally good control of his body,” said Latin’s coach, Dave VanderMeulen.