I also wrote about the weird anomaly posed by a giant, prematurely post-puberty middle school football player, wondering at what point he had to be considered a danger on the field. Jeremiah Johnson was a 12-year-old running back from Fort Worth, Texas, who was 5-foot-11 and weighed198 pounds. In”An Ethics Incompleteness Principle Challenge: The Mutant Kid” I couldn’t come to a conclusion I felt comfortable about.
Basketball is sport that uniquely favors the tall. Is there any level of freakish height that would mandate banning a player? When Wilt Chamberlain entered the NBA, he was unlike any other player ever seen on a basketball court. He was 7’1″ when few players were taller than 6’8″. Wilt still holds 72 NBA records and is the only player to score 100 points in a game. Olivier Rioux is eight inches taller than Wilt the Stilt, and might still be growing. If he grew to ten feet tall and could still move, dribble and shoot, would it be fair for him to compete against normal sized players? Would it be any more fair to ban a mutant player because he was too good at a sport?
Or does there have to be a limit to what a sport can permit in the interests of player safety and the integrity of competition?
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