Step-by-step explanation:
The professional basketball player was much taller THAN anyone else in the room.
Everyone kept staring at him AND ME.
You see, I'm way OF thinking being tall is something unusual.
It had NOT.
I have corrected the word that are here and added the word that are missing in your passage. This passage is describing how the writer is seeing tallness from his perspective and he is describing his how he was feeling when he was young.