At 7 feet, 9 inches, Olivier Rioux is the world's tallest teen and an intriguing basketball project

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Walking from his apartment to classes and then to the University of Florida’s basketball facility, Olivier Rioux poses for dozens — sometimes hundreds — of pictures a day.

Vertical shots, of course. Rioux won’t fit in the frame any other way.

At 7 feet, 9 inches, Rioux is the ultimate BMOC. He’s actually the Biggest Man On Campus — any campus.

The Florida freshman, a happy-go-lucky Canadian who owns a spot in the Guinness record book as the world’s tallest teenager, also will make basketball history when he plays for the 21st-ranked Gators this season. The cheerful guy known as “Oli” will become the tallest to play college hoops, supplanting 7-foot-7 Kenny George of UNC Asheville (2006-08).

He’s 2 inches taller than former NBA giants Gheorghe Muresan and Manute Bol, and 3 inches taller than popular big men Yao Ming, Tacko Fall and Shawn Bradley.

“You get asked questions every day,” said Rioux, who likes to draw in his spare time. “You don’t have a single three seconds to yourself when you’re outside, which I was fine with because my brother and my dad are tall. And, as a family, we used to go out. That’s just how it was, and you can’t change that because people are curious.”

His college teammates have gotten used to it by now.

“It’s really weird looking up to someone,” said 7-foot-1 center Micah Handlogten. “But being around him just about every day, it’s just different when you’re out in public with him. People normally ask me, ‘You’re so tall. Do you play basketball?’ No one says a word to me (now). Everyone just looks to him. It’s kind of crazy. He doesn’t shy away from it.”

Rioux actually embraces it. He welcomes the stares, the questions and all the requests.

“It does help to be Canadian,” he quipped. “You just get used to it. Talking to people is nice because they are curious, and you can’t change that.”

Rioux has worked hard to prepare for Division I basketball, but no one expects him to be a star at this level, certainly not right away. The Gators do expect Rioux to be a fan favorite, beginning with their season opener against USF on Monday night. Coach Todd Golden predicts it will be like nothing he’s ever experienced, with chants for Rioux late in games.

“That one we can see coming from a mile away,” Golden said. "About 95% of my conversations with random people about our team are about him. It’s the first time we’ve been ranked since 2019 and it’s like, ‘Hey, Coach, we’re really excited to see Oli out there this year.’ And I get it, man. He’s a very unique individual.”

Rioux grew up in Terrebonne, Quebec, and realized at an early age he was different. He was taller than most of his teachers in elementary school, crossed the 6-foot mark by age 8 and topped 7 feet the summer before seventh grade.

His mom is 6-2, dad is 6-8 and his older brother is 6-9.

“At my meemaw’s house, we had the wall (where) me and my brother used to measure ourselves. And then one day, poof, my brother was gone,” Rioux said, recalling the day he “officially” outgrew his entire family.

Back home in Canada, Rioux has a number of custom-made items to make life more comfortable, most notably his bed. On campus, though, he barely fits diagonally across a queen-sized mattress.

He has to duck to get through near every doorway and often hits his head. He wears a size 20 shoe, gets most of his wardrobe from team gear and won’t dare ride a scooter because “I don’t trust myself.” And squeezing into a classroom desk is more comical than a point guard trying to box him out.

He started playing basketball at age 5 and ended up at IMG Academy in Sarasota, about three hours south of Gainesville, for high school. He had offers from UC Irvine and Morehead State but ended up at Florida as a preferred walk-on.

He’s one of six international players on Golden’s roster and a clear project despite having played in several FIBA events with the Canadian national team, including the 2024 U18 FIBA AmeriCup and the 2023 U19 World Cup.

“The great thing in our minds is we think he has potential to play at some point,” Golden said. “He’s more than just a 7-9 guy. He’s had some really good moments in practice, super coachable and I’m excited for him to get to this point next year and kind of see where we’re at."

Rioux has made strides in just a few months. His mobility and coordination have improved — he can wrap his leg around his head — along with his conditioning. Golden still wants him to use his 305-pound frame to become “more of a butt-kicker” in the low post.

“He has flashes in practice where he’ll make some plays and you’re like, ‘Whoa,’” Golden said. “Like, obviously, we can’t do that with anybody else.”

Rioux can dunk without leaving his feet and has a nearly unstoppable hook shot. He wears No. 32 because of his affection for Pro Basketball Hall of Famers Magic Johnson and Shaquille O’Neal, a fellow 7-footer.

He’d like to pattern his game after former Purdue center Zach Edey (7-4) and French superstar Victor Wembanyama (7-3), who is currently considered the gold standard for 7-footers.

“Oh my God,” Rioux gushed.

Most people have the same reaction when seeing Rioux for the first time. He towers over teammates and classmates, and just about every picture taken of him goes viral.

“He doesn’t seek the attention, but he also doesn’t get annoyed at the people that ask,” Handlogten said. “He embraces it because it’s part of him, and he loves that. If someone comes up and asks for pictures, he’s like, ‘Yeah, of course.’ And he always has that bright smile on his face. It’s awesome.”

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Olivier Rioux, back center, a 7-foot-9 NCAA college basketball player at Florida, gathers with coaches and teammates at the team's practice, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Olivier Rioux, 7-foot-9 NCAA college basketball player at Florida, runs the court at the team's practice, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Olivier Rioux, 7-foot-9 NCAA college basketball player at Florida, moves the ball downcourt at the team's practice, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Olivier Rioux, a 7-foot-9 NCAA college basketball player at Florida, dunks the ball as he practices with the team, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Olivier Rioux, 7-foot-9 NCAA college basketball player at Florida, dunks the ball as he practices with the team, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Olivier Rioux, a 7-foot-9 NCAA college basketball player at Florida, dunks the ball as he practices with the team, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Olivier Rioux, center, a 7-foot-9 NCAA college basketball player at Florida, takes a break at practice with teammates Kajus Kublickas, left, and Kevin Pazmino (2), Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Olivier Rioux, 7-foot-9 NCAA college basketball player at Florida, practices with the team, Friday Oct. 18, 2024, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Olivier Rioux, back center, a 7-foot-9 NCAA college basketball player at Florida, gathers with coaches and teammates at the team's practice, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Olivier Rioux, 7-foot-9 NCAA college basketball player at Florida, poses for a photo after practice, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)