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7-Foot-4 Brenden Adams Joins Middle School Football Team

Nov 6, 2009 – 7:07 PM
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Pardon the pun, but the Morgan Middle School football team just gained a huge advantage over future opponents when 7-foot-4 Brendan Adams joined their team.

At just 14-years-old, Brendan is listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest teenage boy in the world. Brendan told Melissa Luck, an executive producer for KXLY4 in Spokane, Wash., "It was my 12th chromosome that broke in half and flipped over and reattached," although doctors have not yet diagnosed what exactly caused his rapid growth after birth.

While Luck's story does go into the medical details of Brendan's condition, he also told her that football is his favorite sport despite his mother previously prohibiting him from playing the game.



"This is the first year my mom's let me play," Adams told Luck. "She thought I was going to get hurt or something. It's my favorite sport and she said this is an opportunity she didn't want me to miss."

At higher levels of football, such a height would be a disadvantage as it raises one's center of gravity and makes them much easier to tackle. But at the middle school level, Brendan towers over his teammates and opponents alike at the Ellensburg, Wash., school.

Still, he is extremely limited on the field. "He can't run, he can't really jump," his coach Kevin Wetzel told KXLY4. "There's not a whole lot he can do. If you want to get him some action, you have to be creative."

So Wetzel went to work with the clipboard and designed a play specifically for him. He goes out on a five-yard buttonhook play and the quarterback just floats the ball up to him.

When this play is executed well, Brendan might be the biggest redzone threat in the history of middle school football. After all, even the next tallest player on the field can't jump nearly as high as Brendan can reach.

Follow Chris Sesno on twitter: @csesno
Filed under: Sports

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