HS Basketball Star 6'10" and Still Growing
Basketball's next superstar may be playing for a girls' prep school team in New Jersey. Even more surprising - she just took up the sport. But, as CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod reports, this teenager is remarkable in more ways than one.
It's not every day a Bubbles Anderson comes walking through your door (after she ducks her head, of course).
That's especially true if you're a basketball coach.
"Once in a lifetime, 6-10, 6-11 comes your way," said Mary Coyle-Klinger, Anderson's high school coach.
Six-foot, ten-inches would make this 16-year-old tied for the tallest girl in the world.
Anderson wears the number 23 in a tribute to basketball legends Michael Jordan and LeBron James. "They're so good," she said.
But Anderson is taller than both - nearly half a foot taller than Jordan and two inches taller than James. And she's still growing.
Her doctor says she'll reach at least 7-foot-1 Asked how she feels about that, Anderson said, "I don't know. It just feels normal."
She came here this summer from Jamaica, looking for a better life and ended up at Rutgers Prep in New Jersey - on the basketball team - even though she had never played before.
She's a natural, Pat Coyle, a former WNBA coach and NCAA star Pat Coyle and the sister of the Rutgers Prep coach Coyle-Klinger.
"If she continues to grow as a player the way she has the last three months she's going to redefine the game because of her size and her athleticism," Coyle said.
Establishing an identity can be the toughest part of a teenager's life and when you're just under seven feet tall an identity would seem to be ready made. But ask her classmates about what makes Bubbles so special. You might be surprised at the answers.
We asked a dozen classmates to describe her in one word. Among the answers: "hilarious," "lovable," "friendly," "outgoing," and "loud."
Not one said "tall," which is something considering that Bubbles Anderson is head and shoulders above the crowd.
