World's Tallest Teenager Plays Football

In some ways Brendan Adams is a typical 14-year-old boy, playing football with his classmates at Morgan Middle School in Ellensburg, Wash. But the few times he takes to the field, he stands heads and shoulders, and chest and waist, above the other boys. ( See a photo .)

Adams stands 7 feet 4 inches and is the the tallest teenage boy in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Adams is so tall he actually looked down on Shaquille O'Neal during an appearance on the Oprah show last year.

Shaq's advice was to "just keep your back straight and have fun," Adams remembers.

According to KXLY-TV , the 8th grader always wanted to play football. "This is the first year my mom's let me play," said Adams to the station. "She thought I was gonna get hurt or something. It's my favorite sport and she said this is an opportunity she didn't want me to miss."

But he needed to get medical permission to play. Doctors were worried a broken bone could cause him to bleed to death because his blood counts were abnormal. A surgery to remove his enlarged spleen last year got his blood counts back to normal. So his mother relented and allowed him to play this year.

Yahoo! Rivals high school sports blog reported that though Adams height is impressive, it still holds him back as it comes with serious health problems, including the unusual blood counts and enlarged joints. He already has arthritis.

Adams is not on the field for many plays. "He can't run, he can't really jump," said his coach Kevin Wetzel to KXLY . "There's not a whole lot he can do. If you want to get him some action, you have to be creative."

The team has drawn up one play for Adams, they call it the their secret weapon: Adam goes out about five yards and the quarterback lofts up the ball. No other boy can jump as high.

In Britain a 16-year-old girl is the country's tallest girl. Emma Cahill is 6 feet 5.5 inches and towers over the classmates and teachers at her school in Worcester. The Telegraph reported that she is the star player on the netball team (a game similar to basketball) but needs shoes specially designed to fit her size 14 feet, while she also had to have her new uniform tailored to fit her 36-inch legs.

And if you are wondering about other tall athletes, Asylum.com put together a slideshow some of the tallest sports figures.