The Slanch Report

When he was born, Brenden Adams was a perfectly average infant but by 5 months doctors realized something was special about him, starting with the fact that he already had all his teeth. He was growing rapidly, by age 2 and a half he was 3 foot 6, by 5 he had grown a full foot, at age 11 Adams stood 6 feet 8 inches.

“It was my 12th chromosome that broke in half and flipped over and reattached,” Brenden explained, something that his doctors don’t know how or why it happened, and that they had never seen before.
Today, at age 14 Adams measures 7′ 5″, which according to the Guinness Book of Records makes him the world’s largest teenager. Life isn’t easy with such a large frame, all Adams wants to do is be normal and play with his friends but his size makes it difficult.

His lifelong dream has been to play football but concerns that he would be seriously hurt had prevented his mother from allowing him to play. Now that he’s in 8th grade, Adams mom, after consulting with various doctors agreed, “This is the first year my mom’s let me play. 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.”

Because his body has grown so quickly, Brenden has some real health issues; his body is full of tumors, he has a heart arrhythmia, arthritis, enlarged joints and can’t run or jump. Worried that a broken bone could cause him to bleed to death, doctors removed Brenden’s spleen in order to lower his blood counts to normal levels.

Because of his lack of mobility, Brenden is not as much of a weapon as you’d think on the field, although they have designed a special play to utilize his unique size. They send him out about 5 yards and then have the QB just lob the ball in the air, none of the 8th graders they play can jump anywhere near Brenden’s reach and so it’s an easy couple yards. However, because of the risk of injury Brenden has only been able to get in a few plays all season, but that doesn’t bother him, he’s just excited to be a part of the team and wearing the pads, unlike last season when he was forced to serve as the water-boy.

Doctors are hopeful he’s done growing, administering testosterone shots in order to induce puberty and close his growth plates. So far so good, he hasn’t grown at all since February. Because of his extraordinary height Brenden was on Oprah last year where she arranged for him to get some hard to find size 22 shoes from Shaquille O’Neal, who Brenden was able to meet and hang out with for a day.

For now, Brenden just wants to be a member of the team, playing alongside his lifelong best friend Ryan Secondi. “It’s great,” Secondi says. “He’s part of the team. He works just like all the other people.”

[KXLY via Barstool Sports]