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expect from someone dragging size-22 shoes along for the ride up and down the court, and he's developed the ability to score with either hand around the basket, in the thin air most defenders lack access to. He says he's developed some modest perimeter skill that sometimes allows him to steer clear of the steel-cage matches opponents try to drag him into around the basket. But obviously size is first and foremost for Haas, the reason Rivals.com ranked him 64th nationally in the Class of 2014 and a wide variety of national schools offered him scholarships before he decided in November to not sign with Wake Forest and inked with Purdue instead. Tom Campbell Haas stands out on the hardwood just by, well, At 7-foot-2 and 275 pounds, Haas will be one of the biggest players in standing. college basketball next season. But that's true of every phase of life for a young person who's learned to fold up like origami to ery floor he sets foot on, but he won't cast quite the shadow he does now. He won't loom over everyone else like a lone squeeze into coach seating on airplanes, in the rare event redwood in the forest. He'll wrestle in the post with those a fellow passenger doesn't volunteer up their bulkhead who can at least come close to matching up physically and seat out of common decency. "Usually he just wants to sit with me, though," Haas' won't have to resort to the sort of guerrilla warfare overmother, Rachel, joked. "One time, a lady offered to give matched high school rivals have. But right now, it is what it is for the Boilermaker-to-be, him her seat, but he said he wanted to sit with mom bethe blessings that come with his jaw-dropping dimensions cause he could just crowd her." There are practical considerations of life that large that — height and width alike; the 275-pounder is more thick seep into every hour of every day. than stick — being accompanied by modest curses. While Haas played AAU, it was Nike that provided those Sometimes big men play the game because they love to and sometimes they just play 'cause they're big and are ex- battleships he wears on his feet, while he played for the Swoosh-sponsored Alabama Challenge on the summer cirpected to. In Haas' case, he's all in, has been ever since he gave up cuit. At Purdue, a Nike-sponsored program, the same will playing offensive line — in a sport where low man wins, be true. But for more formal footwear, Rachel Haas said, a twothe highest man imaginable can't always keep up — and was introduced to summer basketball. That is where on the hour drive to Atlanta is their only option. (Friedman's Shoes in Downtown Atlanta also counts AAU circuit he was surrounded by those who were seriamong its customers Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley, ous about the game, in situations that illustrated how he stacked up, as well as a welcomed respite from the unsa- Magic Johnson and the guy who played Michael Oher in vory tactics opponents had already begun using against "The Blind Side.") Ordering online: Not an option. him even before he'd reached 7 feet. "He has a very wide foot," Rachel Haas said, "so we need The center's size defines him as a basketball player, obviously, in his natural ability to simply occupy space and to try everything on." Very few people would know what it's like to stand in affect games just by standing there. When you're that big, you almost have to try not to be an impactful shot-blocker those shoes, in any sense, to be that big, to be gawked at and rebounder, but Haas is regarded as much more as a even in buildings full of over-sized people. It was at a prominent summer tournament in South player than just a gigantic warm body. He runs OK for his size, certainly better than you might Carolina this summer when Haas made maybe the hun70 IllustrateD volume 24, issue 3 f