The noble, powerful servant

Basketball players tend to be tall. There are exceptions – Tyrone ‘Muggsy’ Bogues, the shortest player ever to grace the National Basketball Association (NBA) of America was a mere 5’ 3’’ – but well over six feet is the norm. But even among the titans of the basketball court one player, one of the best ever in the history of the NBA, stands out. At 7’ 2’’, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had an obvious advantage on court, but he also suffered for his height with a succession of eye injuries.

There are many examples of sportsmen wearing prescription spectacles or goggles on the field of play. Cricket can boast many, including Geoff Boycott, Clive Lloyd, Zaheer Abbas, Daniel Vettori and, in the recent ICC World Cup, Pakistan’s Imam-ul-Haq. Football can claim the Dutchman, Joop van Daele (see The Estudiantes Incident, Optician 02.02.18). In the NBA there is Kurt Rambis who, while playing for the glitzy Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s, sported tortoiseshell spectacles. An interesting case, also in the NBA, is Horace Grant who was part of the all-conquering Chicago Bulls team of the 1990s that included the legendary Michael Jordan. Grant began wearing prescription goggles on court to correct his myopia. The goggles became somewhat of a trademark for Grant and, because of feedback he received from parents that he was a role model for spectacle-wearing children, he continued to wear (non-prescription) goggles even after having had corrective Lasik refractive surgery.