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Posts tagged as “Meadowlark Lemon”

On 2.22.22, Remembering Basketball Legend Frederick “Curly” Neal, Harlem Globetrotters #22 for 22 Years

On 2.22.22, Remembering Basketball Legend Frederick “Curly” Neal, Harlem Globetrotters #22 for 22 Years

By goodblacknews on February 22, 2022

Some readers may be too young to remember the 1970s and 1980s heydays of the still entertaining  and awe-inspiring traveling basketball team, the Harlem Globetrotters, but for those who do, today, on 2-22-22, we are taking a moment to honor Harlem Globetrotter #22, Frederick “Curly” Neal.

Neal, called “Curly” ironically because of his famously bald head, was a crowd favorite and featured ball handler on the team who did tricks, slips and amazing shots, all with flair and a smile. Neal played with the Globetrotters for 22 years before retiring from the game.

Neal sadly passed away on March 26, 2020 but his legacy lives on, particularly through those he entertained and inspired. Check out some of his highlights from the “Happy Birthday” video the Globetrotters put together for Neal in 2016:

Current Globetrotter Jahmani “Hot Shot” Swanson, known as the “4’9″ Michael Jordan” was inspired to become a player by Neal. Below is his open letter honoring Neal:

Dear Curly,

At nine years old, I attended one of my first professional sporting events in New York City’s famous Madison Square Garden arena with my mother. This moment was special because basketball became my first love as a child. I spent hours honing and perfecting my skills, often emulating moves of the greats like Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson.

At the time, I wasn’t yet immersed in the lure of the Harlem Globetrotters; however, as a sports fanatic, I followed the players across sports teams. I vividly remember the fanfare, the lights, the crowd and an eerily familiar song, which I would eventually come to know as “Sweet Georgia Brown.” I didn’t know on that night; another icon would enter my world and forever inspire me.

Curly, the moment you stepped onto the court, I was in awe. Unfathomable trick shots, clutch behind the back passes, supreme control of the rock, high engagement from the crowd, personality, charm, humility and yes, your signature bald head. Curly, you were the man. From that moment, I became a fan for life. I didn’t believe it was possible, but my love for the game elevated.

You were magnifying.

As I matured, I came to know you for the inspiration you left off the court. In the prime of your career, you and the Harlem Globetrotters team were breaking racial barriers, bringing people and their love for basketball together. You did more than entertain; you were a part of history. You were a catalyst to bringing joy to fans across the globe, suiting up with other Globetrotter greats like MeadowLark Lemon and Wilt Chamberlain. The makeup of one of the first all-black basketball teams in our nation’s history.

You appeared in more than 6,000 games in nearly 100 countries for 22 years throughout your career. Your commitment to excellence earned you an induction into the CIAA Hall of Fame in 1986 and the 2008 North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. With everything you accomplished, you were able to do it with the odds stacked against you.

You spoke of times when you were denied access to hotels on the road and where you and the team encountered moments of racism and hate. Through it all, you persevered and did it with a smile. Sometimes, I sit and watch videos of your games, interviews and appearances and wonder, “what did he go through that day?” “How did he push forward in those times?”

I believe through it all, you continued to show up and stand tall.

You were the ultimate athlete.

I will never forget when I attended a New York Knicks versus the Boston Celtics game in Madison Square Garden, this time as an adult, and the arena was packed. It was probably one of the most intense games I’ve experienced as a fan until you walked through the crowd. I remember seeing people turn their attention from the game to dap you up and ask for autographs and pictures. The crowd’s love for you at that moment was something I rarely saw, and the energy was unmatched. You were the epitome of star power.

You were the culture.

Now, as a Globetrotter, I stand on your shoulders aiming to leave a legacy – that if only embodies half of what you accomplished – would be the ultimate achievement for me. A few years ago, I was awarded the Star Power award from the franchise. Many staff and even coaches tell me that I remind them a bit of you, and I feel honored and blessed to be mentioned in that way. I’ve learned what it means to #SpreadGame, entertain and inspire the world. Through your legacy, you’ve shown the world that anything is possible when your heart, mind, and intentions are in the right place.

Thank you for your showmanship, professionalism, legacy, and, most importantly, your humanity.

With Love,
Jahmani “Hot Shot” Swanson

You can learn more about Neal and the Harlem Globetrotters in the 2005 documentary Harlem Globetrotters: The Team That Changed The World, by watching it here or available on Amazon Video.

R.I.P. Legendary Harlem Globetrotter and Basketball Hall of Famer Meadowlark Lemon

R.I.P. Legendary Harlem Globetrotter and Basketball Hall of Famer Meadowlark Lemon

By goodblacknews on December 28, 2015

The 1976-77 National Unit Harlem Globetrotters team. Kneeling, from left: Nate Branch, Curly Neal, Meadowlark Lemon and Jackie Jackson. Standing, from left: Dallas Thornton, Edmond Lawrence, Robert Paige, Twiggy Sanders and Jerry Venable. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The 1976-77 National Unit Harlem Globetrotters team. Kneeling, from left: Nate Branch, Curly Neal, Meadowlark Lemon and Jackie Jackson. Standing, from left: Dallas Thornton, Edmond Lawrence, Robert Paige, Twiggy Sanders and Jerry Venable. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Meadowlark Lemon, whose halfcourt hook shots, no-look behind-the-back passes and vivid clowning were marquee features of the feel-good traveling basketball show known as the Harlem Globetrotters for nearly a quarter-century, died on Sunday in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 83.

His death was confirmed by his wife, Cynthia Lemon, who did not specify the cause.

A gifted athlete with an entertainer’s hunger for the spotlight, Lemon, who dreamed of playing for the Globetrotters as a boy in North Carolina, joined the team in 1954, not long after leaving the Army. Within a few years, he had assumed the central role of showman, taking over from the Trotters’ long-reigning clown prince Reece Tatum, whom everyone called Goose.

Tatum, who had left the team around the time Lemon joined it, was a superb ballplayer whose on-court gags — or reams, as the players called them — had established the team’s reputation for laugh-inducing wizardry at a championship level.

This was a time when the Trotters were known for more than their comedy routines and basketball legerdemain; they were also recognized as a formidable competitive team. Their victory over the Minneapolis Lakers in 1948 was instrumental in integrating the National Basketball Association, and a decade later their owner, Abe Saperstein, signed a 7-footer out of the University of Kansas to a one-year contract before he was eligible for the N.B.A.: Wilt Chamberlain.

Meadowlark Lemon showed off his large hands on arrival in London, where the Globetrotters performed at the Empire Pool in Wembley for a week in 1959. (Associated Press)
Meadowlark Lemon showed off his large hands on arrival in London, where the Globetrotters performed at the Empire Pool in Wembley for a week in 1959. (Associated Press)

By then, Lemon, who was 6 feet 3 inches tall and slender, was the team’s leading light, such a star that he played center while Chamberlain played guard.

Lemon was a slick ballhandler and a virtuoso passer, and he specialized in the long-distance hook, a trick shot he made with remarkable regularity. But it was his charisma and comic bravado that made him perhaps the most famous Globetrotter. For 22 years, until he left the team in 1978, Lemon was the Trotters’ ringmaster, directing their basketball circus from the pivot. He imitated Tatum’s reams, including spying on the opposition’s huddle, and added his own.

He threatened referees or fans with a bucket that like as not was filled with confetti instead of water. He dribbled above his head and walked with exaggerated steps. He mimicked a hitter in the batter’s box and, with teammates, pantomimed a baseball game. And both to torment the opposing team — as time went on, it was often a hired squad of foils — and to amuse the appreciative spectators, he smiled and laughed and teased and chattered; like Tatum, he talked most of the time he was on the court.

The Trotters played in mammoth arenas and on dirt courts in African villages. They played in Rome before the pope; they played in Moscow during the Cold War before the Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev. In the United States, they played in small towns and big cities, in Madison Square Garden, in high school gyms, in cleared-out auditoriums — even on the floor of a drained swimming pool. They performed their most entertaining ballhandling tricks, accompanied by their signature tune, “Sweet Georgia Brown,” on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

Through it all, Lemon became “an American institution like the Washington Monument or the Statue of Liberty” whose “uniform will one day hang in the Smithsonian right next to Lindbergh’s airplane,” as the Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray once described him.

Significantly, Lemon’s time with the Globetrotters paralleled the rise of the N.B.A. When he joined the team, the Globetrotters were still better known than the Knicks and the Boston Celtics and played for bigger crowds than they did. When he left, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were about to enter the N.B.A. and propel it to worldwide popularity. In between, the league became thoroughly accommodating to black players, competing with the Globetrotters for their services and eventually usurping the Trotters as the most viable employer of top black basketball talent.