"five daughters; Sharon Hill, Britt Thomas, Cheryl Thomas, Terry Dennis and Kelly Mack; four sons; Benjamin Daniels, John Kline III, Michael Kline and Alan Daniels; his brother, Ronald Colvard; 22 grandchildren; and 28 great-grandchildren. John Kline (basketball) John Kline (November 18, 1931 – July 26, 2018) was an American basketball player for the Harlem Globetrotters (1953–1959) who founded the Black Legends of Professional Basketball in 1996. Kline was a high-leaping 6-foot-3 star nicknamed Jumpin’ Johnny at Wayne University (now Wayne State University) in Detroit, because of his poor grades he dropped out of Wayne State to join the Globetrotters in"
"team has credited to Reece ""Goose"" Tatum, who joined in 1941—and eventually became known more for entertainment than sports. The Globetrotters' acts often feature incredible coordination and skillful handling of one or more basketballs, such as passing or juggling balls between players, balancing or spinning balls on their fingertips, and making unusually difficult shots. In 1952, the Globetrotters invited Louis ""Red"" Klotz to create a team to accompany them on their tours. This team, the Washington Generals (who also played under various other names), became the Globetrotters' primary opponents. The Generals are effectively stooges for the Globetrotters, with the Globetrotters"
"Globetrotters won the World Professional Basketball Tournament once, in 1940, beating the Chicago Bruins with a score of 31–29. Starting in 2007, the Globetrotters have conducted an annual ""draft"" a few days before the NBA draft, in which they select players they feel fit the mold of a Globetrotter. Being drafted by the Globetrotters does not guarantee a spot on the team, although several drafted players have gone on to become Globetrotters: Anthony ""Ant"" Atkinson (2007), Brent Petway (2007), William ""Bull"" Bullard (2008), Tay ""Firefly"" Fisher (2008), Charlie Coley III (2009), Paul ""Tiny"" Sturgess (2011), Jacob ""Hops"" Tucker (2011), Darnell"
"Globetrotters and appeared in the 1981 movie The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island. Dallas Thornton Dallas Thornton (born September 1, 1946) was an American basketball player. Thornton was born in Louisville, Kentucky and played basketball at Male High School there. Thornton played college basketball at Kentucky Wesleyan College. Thornton was selected in the 1968 NBA draft in the fourth round by the Baltimore Bullets and was selected in the 1968 ABA draft by the Miami Floridians. Thornton opted to sign with the Floridians and played for the team through two seasons, averaging 6.6 points per game in the 1968–69 season"
"the Midwest in his unheated Ford Model T. From early on, the Globetrotters blended basketball with showmanship and ball-handling wizardry. But they were also extremely talented basketball players, winning most of their games. In 1940, the Globetrotters beat the legendary black basketball team, the New York Renaissance. An even bigger achievement came a few years later in the 1948 Globetrotters-Lakers game, when the Globetrotters defeated the Minneapolis Lakers, the best team in the all-white NBA, a league that had been formed two years earlier. The star of the Lakers was six-foot-ten George Mikan, nicknamed “Mr. Basketball.” Despite the Lakers’ significant"
"others. Curley ""Boo"" Johnson Curley ""Boo"" Johnson (born February 10, 1965) is an American basketball player, best known as a member of the Harlem Globetrotters. Born in Peoria, Illinois, Curley Johnson is the son of Lorraine and Curley Johnson Sr (1936–1984). Curley Johnson Sr. was a bona fide pioneer of basketball and the ""Jackie Robinson"" of Bradley University basketball. Curley ""Boo"" Johnson moved to Peoria, Illinois, in 1970 at age 4. He led Sterling Grade School, coached by Robert Snowden, to a fourth-place finish in the city championships while setting scoring records, becoming the school's MVP. Johnson also excelled playing"
"Tony Peyton Charles Anthony ""Tony"" Peyton (March 3, 1922 - July 23, 2007) was a member of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team. In the early 1940s, the Globetrotters played and defeated many of the country's top professional basketball teams. Tony was born in Elyria, Ohio. He graduated from Scott High School in Toledo, Ohio, where he played basketball, football and ran track and field. At the age of 19 he was asked to join the Harlem Globetrotters, long before the team became known primarily for its comical antics. His basketball success would now be considered unusual in that he was"
"1920s, where all the original players were raised. The Globetrotters began as the Savoy Big Five, one of the premier attractions of the Savoy Ballroom opened in January 1928, a basketball team of African-American players that played exhibitions before dances. In 1928, several players left the team in a dispute. That autumn, several of the players, led by Tommy Brookins, formed a team called the ""Globe Trotters"" and toured Southern Illinois that spring. Abe Saperstein became involved with the team as its manager and promoter. By 1929, Saperstein was touring Illinois and Iowa with his basketball team called the ""New"
"help support his mother. Later he managed to get on the Washington Generals, and was then traded to the Globetrotters, one of only two players in twenty years to make the transition. Too Tall Hall Jonte ""Too Tall"" Hall (born July 2, 1982) is an American basketball player for the Harlem Globetrotters. At and , he is one of the smallest players in Globetrotter history. Hall was raised in the McCulloh Street projects, in West Baltimore, and, despite his height, liked basketball from an early age. He attended Carver Vocational-Technical High School in Baltimore, where he helped the basketball team"
"Abe Saperstein Abraham Michael Saperstein (July 4, 1902 – March 15, 1966) was the founder, owner and earliest coach of the Harlem Globetrotters. Saperstein was a leading figure in black basketball and baseball in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, primarily before those sports were racially integrated. Saperstein revolutionized the game of basketball and took the Globetrotters from an unknown team touring small farm towns in the Midwestern United States during the height of the Great Depression to a powerhouse that went on to beat the best team in the all-white National Basketball Association. He also introduced the three-point shot,"
"Globetrotters. However, Globetrotters owner Abe Saperstein told Perry he was too smart for the barnstorming life and offered to pay his way to law school. Perry took him up on his offer and went to Lincoln Law School. He ran a successful private practice for many years. Perry died on April 30, 2009 after a long illness. Hal Perry (basketball) Harold L. ""Hal"" Perry (December 15, 1933 – April 30, 2009) was an American basketball player and attorney famous for being a starter on the University of San Francisco back to back NCAA championship teams of 1955 and 1956. Perry,"
"reason to think so. For two decades, the Globetrotters had traveled the country winning game after game. It was because the team was so unbeatable that the players first started clowning around to make the game more interesting. When the Globetrotters arrived at the Chicago Stadium to face the Lakers, they were on a 102-game winning streak. The Lakers, on the other hand, were a new team, formed only six months earlier. But they were already on their way to becoming a powerhouse, with two future Hall of Famers: The 6'10"" George Mikan, who is described by the NBA as"
"the USSR was becoming more capitalist (Pearson suggested that the games were held because Lenin Stadium needed money). Many famous basketball players have played for the Globetrotters. Greats such as ""Wee"" Willie Gardner, Connie ""The Hawk"" Hawkins, Wilt ""The Stilt"" Chamberlain, and Nat ""Sweetwater"" Clifton later went on to join the NBA. The Globetrotters signed their first female player, Olympic gold medalist Lynette Woodard, in 1985. The Globetrotters have featured thirteen female players in their history. Baseball Hall of Famers Ernie Banks, Bob Gibson, and Ferguson Jenkins also played for the team at one time or another. Because the majority"
"Curley ""Boo"" Johnson Curley ""Boo"" Johnson (born February 10, 1965) is an American basketball player, best known as a member of the Harlem Globetrotters. Born in Peoria, Illinois, Curley Johnson is the son of Lorraine and Curley Johnson Sr (1936–1984). Curley Johnson Sr. was a bona fide pioneer of basketball and the ""Jackie Robinson"" of Bradley University basketball. Curley ""Boo"" Johnson moved to Peoria, Illinois, in 1970 at age 4. He led Sterling Grade School, coached by Robert Snowden, to a fourth-place finish in the city championships while setting scoring records, becoming the school's MVP. Johnson also excelled playing tailback"
"NAIA National Tournament. Middleton played for Rochester and St. Joseph of the Premier Basketball League, and then in China. He began playing for the Globetrotters starting in the 2011-12 season, and continued through the 2014-15 season. Middleton currently lives in San Antonio. He is in business with the Australian company SafeLace. Jermaine Middleton Jermaine ""Stretch"" Middleton (born January 15, 1984) was an American basketball player for the Harlem Globetrotters. The 7'4"" Middleton was born in Los Angeles and started playing basketball as a Crenshaw High School junior. His friend Dorrell Wright convinced him to attend South Kent School for a"
"Red Klotz Louis Herman ""Red"" Klotz (October 21, 1920 – July 12, 2014) was an American professional basketball player. He was a National Basketball Association (NBA) point guard with the original Baltimore Bullets, and he was best known for forming the teams that play against and tour with the Harlem Globetrotters: the Washington Generals and the New York Nationals. He was the oldest-living NBA world champion. Over Klotz's professional basketball career, he coached or played in over 14,000 games during eight decades and in over 100 countries. Klotz was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, into a Jewish family. He began playing"
"Chaney, the former longtime Temple University basketball coach who, in 1948, was a teenager in deeply segregated Jacksonville, Florida. Two years later, in 1950, three former Globetrotters became the first black players on NBA teams. The Boston Celtics drafted Chuck Cooper, the New York Knicks signed center Nat ""Sweetwater"" Clifton, and the Tri-Cities Blackhawks (now the Atlanta Hawks) took Hank DeZonie. As basketball became integrated, giving talented black players greater opportunity to play professionally, the Globetrotters had fewer recruits to choose from. Rather than try to compete with the NBA, Abe Saperstein transformed the Globetrotters into a touring act, first"
"successes, interest in the Globetrotters grew and Saperstein created two more teams in the United States, as well as an international squad. The Globetrotters have now played in more than 118 countries. Even after the NBA integrated, top black players continued to play for the Globetrotters. In 1958, Wilt Chamberlain joined the Globetrotters for a year before going to the NBA and becoming its most dominant player. In a 1999 interview, Wilt Chamberlain said, “The fraternity of the Globetrotters was one of the most rewarding times of my life. I almost did not go into the NBA.” Two feature-length movies"
"to play and entertain suggested Meléndez try out for the Globetrotters after the two had bumped into each other outside the San Juan apartment building in which they both lived. In 2008, Meléndez became the first Puerto Rico-born basketball player ever to play for the Harlem Globetrotters. He was not however, the first Hispanic of Puerto Rican descent to play for the Globetrotters. That distinction belongs to Orlando Antigua, whose mother is Puerto Rican and who in 1995 made Globetrotters history by becoming the first Hispanic and non-black to play for the team. Meléndez whose position is that of ""power"
"Herbert ""Flight Time"" Lang Herbert ""Flight Time"" Lang (born August 1, 1976) is an American basketball player for the Harlem Globetrotters. He graduated from Centenary College of Louisiana in 1998, after a season in which he led the Trans-America Athletic Conference in scoring and won the National Association of Basketball Coaches Slam Dunk Contest. The Globetrotters invited him to their training camp in 1999 He appeared on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader along with his fellow Globetrotters on a special celebrity week. Lang raised $25,000, the most out of all his fellow players. In total, the Globetrotters raised"
"Chicago Crusaders The Chicago Crusaders were an all-black barnstorming basketball club whose history ran from 1933 through 1947. Commonly billed as the ""Western World's Colored Champions"" the team's roster over the years featured about a dozen players who also were members of the better-known Harlem Globetrotters and New York Renaissance, both enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame. In the 1933-34 season Dick Hudson, who had previously managed the seminal Giles Post Legion and Savoy Big Five squads that had helped birth Abe Saperstein's Globetrotters, converted his Hottentots into the Chicago Crusaders as something of a travelling name for the"
"Washington Generals The Washington Generals are an American basketball team, best known for their spectacular losing streak in exhibition games against the Harlem Globetrotters. The team have also played under several different aliases in their long history as the Globetrotters' perennial opponents. The Generals exist primarily as a part of the Harlem Globetrotters' act, effectively being stooges for the Globetrotters. While the Globetrotters play tricks and spectacular displays of skill for the crowd, the Generals appear to attempt to play a ""normal"" game of basketball. The Generals' games involve playing genuine basketball at times, but also not interfering in the"
"Eugene Edgerson Eugene Edgerson (born February 10, 1978 in New Orleans, Louisiana ) is an American basketball player who used to play for the Harlem Globetrotters. As is tradition with the Globetrotters, Edgerson has a nickname: ""Wildkat"", presumably in honor of his alma mater, the University of Arizona. Edgerson spent 1996-2001 as a member of the Arizona Wildcats men's basketball team. He played on a pair of Final Four teams (1997, 2001) with the Wildcats and was a member of the UA 1997 National Championship squad. He is a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. He appeared as a Globetrotter"
"show than competition."" The Globetrotters brought their own opponent—not the Washington Generals, but the San Francisco Chinese Basketeers. A review in Pravda stated, ""This is not basketball; it is too full of tricks"" but praised the Globetrotters' skills and suggested that ""they have some techniques to show us."" The American press—particularly Drew Pearson—made note of the fact that the Globetrotters were paid (per game) the equivalent of $4,000, which could be spent only in Moscow. The games were used as evidence that U.S.–Soviet relations were improving, that Moscow was backing off its criticism of race relations inside America, and that"
"his team was black. The Globetrotters played their first game in Hinkley, Illinois. The team netted a grand total of $8, which was split evenly between the six members of the team, including Saperstein. Over the next several years, in the midst of the Great Depression, Saperstein served as the team's manager, driver, booking agent, PR director, and occasional substitute player. When a player was injured in a 1926 game, for example, Saperstein substituted into the game, prompting the Winona (Minnesota) News to report: ""Four clean-limbed young colored men and a squat bandy-legged chap of Jewish extraction ... styled the"
"Milton L. Banks Milton Leon Banks (October 17, 1958 – July 18, 2007), was an American basketball player best known for his seasons spent touring with the Harlem Globetrotters. He started his basketball career at Cal-Poly in 1979, he was a member of several 3x3 (basketball), or Hoop-it-up championship teams, Dino Smiley's Drew League, and was named to the Venice Beach's basketball Hall of Fame in 2012 along the likes of Kobe Bryant. Milton Leon Banks was born on October 17, 1958, in L.A., Los Angeles, California. He is the son of the late Cleola and Herbert Banks Jr. Milton"
"for several basketball teams as well, until branching out in the late 1920s to form his own team with some of the members of the Savoy Big Five. He called the team the New York Harlem Globetrotters. Although Saperstein's team had nothing to do with Harlem (they wouldn't play there until the 1960s), he chose the name to indicate that the players were black, as Harlem was the epicenter of African-American culture. Many of the towns where the Globetrotters played in their first few years were all white, and Saperstein didn't want other teams or spectators to be surprised that"
"Sonny Boswell Wyatt ""Sonny"" Boswell (May 19, 1915 – October 19, 1964) was an early African American professional basketball player. He was born in Greenville, Mississippi and grew up in Toledo, Ohio, where he attended Scott High School. He played for the Harlem Globetrotters from 1939 to 1942. Boswell was known for taking long distance trick shots to entertain the fans. Abe Saperstein, the manager of the Globetrotters, described Boswell as ""one of the great long shot artists of his day"". In 1940, Boswell was named MVP of the World Professional Basketball Tournament after scoring eleven points in the Globetrotters'"
"Rockets, another Globetrotters exhibition team. Philadelphia Sphas The Philadelphia Sphas, also stylized SPHAs or SPHAS, were an American basketball franchise that existed in professional, semi-professional, and exhibition forms. They played their home games in the ballroom of Philadelphia's Broadwood Hotel. The team's name is an acronym, derived from South Philadelphia Hebrew Association (the group that initially funded the team), and the team's players, at least in its earlier years, were primarily Jewish. Future Philadelphia Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb founded the team as an amateur group shortly after he and some close friends graduated from high school, and it later became"
"Wizards, but also to participate in the show. The Wizards get the crowd involved, often bringing children out onto the floor to be part of a basketball trick or a comedy act. Their antics are similar to those of the Harlem Globetrotters, who were created in 1926. The Wizards, Flight Squad Basketball and the Globetrotters are comedy basketball teams that tour the country. The theme for the Wizards' 2010-2011 campaign was the ""Basketball and Beyond Tour."" They hold the second longest known winning streak in all of professional sports - over 2,800 games after the Harlem Globetrotters 24-year, 8,829 game"
"the Globetrotters play his team, the New Invincibles, which is a team of robot players. Notable sports broadcasters Chick Hearn and Stu Nahan appear as part of the basketball game scene, with Hearn calling the play-by-play action of the climactic showdown. The Globetrotters have no idea how to defeat a team of robots. The Professor is at a loss on how to defeat them until Gilligan unknowingly remarks that the Globetrotters have not done any tricks, causing the Professor to give a halftime pep talk to the Globetrotters that the New Invincibles would be caught off-guard. The Globetrotters start scoring"
"teams in the West, Midwest and East. Tickets cost $1.50 and they were sold out in 48 hours. Jazz great Louis Armstrong played at halftime and actress Joan Caulfield performed a ceremonial opening tip off. The game was played at the University of Washington's Hec Edmondson Pavilion and was filled to its 12,500 capacity. The Globetrotters were considered the best basketball team in the world and the club paid their two star players ""Goose"" Tatum and Marques Hayes twenty five thousand dollars each. Entering the game with Seattle, the Globetrotters had played 3571 games winning 93 percent of their contests."
"Javaris Crittenton Javaris Cortez Crittenton (born December 31, 1987) is an American former professional basketball player who played for the Los Angeles Lakers, Memphis Grizzlies, and Washington Wizards of the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Zhejiang Lions of the Chinese Basketball Association, and the Dakota Wizards of the NBA D-League. He was previously the starting point guard for the Georgia Tech men's basketball team. After pleading guilty to manslaughter in 2015, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Crittenton was born to Sonya Dixon in Atlanta, Georgia. He attended Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, where, as a high school sophomore,"