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Post by beth on Dec 28, 2015 15:22:38 GMT -5
Meadowlark Lemon, Harlem Globetrotters Star, Dies at 83
Meadowlark Lemon, a skilled athlete and basketball court jester who delighted audiences around the world as a star attraction of the Harlem Globetrotters for some 25 years, has died at the age of 83, the Globetrotters confirmed Monday.
Lemon died on Sunday in Scottsdale, Arizona, the Globetrotters said in a statement.
Lemon was the undisputed master of the long-range hook shot, rubber-band ball and other crowd-pleasing tricks during the years he wore the Globetrotters' star-spangled red, white and blue uniform.
The team's website said he played in 7,500 consecutive games — the equivalent of more than 92 NBA seasons — in some 100 countries before audiences that included everyone from Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev to three popes.
He was born Meadow Lemon III in Wilmington, North Carolina, and was unfamiliar with not just the Globetrotters but the game of basketball until he saw a newsreel about the team at a movie theater at the age of 11. He was entranced by the sight of black men taking such a joyous approach to a game during a time of segregation.
"They seemed to make that ball talk," Lemon said when inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003. "I said, 'That's mine. This is for me.' I was receiving a vision, I was receiving a dream in my heart.'"
He rushed home from the theater that day and started fulfilling the dream by fashioning a basketball goal from a clothes hanger and an onion sack and using a tin can for a basketball.
www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/meadowlark-lemon-harlem-globetrotters-star-dies-83-n486701
Meadowlark Lemon, a skilled athlete and basketball court jester who delighted audiences around the world as a star attraction of the Harlem Globetrotters for some 25 years, has died at the age of 83, the Globetrotters confirmed Monday.
Lemon died on Sunday in Scottsdale, Arizona, the Globetrotters said in a statement.
Lemon was the undisputed master of the long-range hook shot, rubber-band ball and other crowd-pleasing tricks during the years he wore the Globetrotters' star-spangled red, white and blue uniform.
The team's website said he played in 7,500 consecutive games — the equivalent of more than 92 NBA seasons — in some 100 countries before audiences that included everyone from Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev to three popes.
He was born Meadow Lemon III in Wilmington, North Carolina, and was unfamiliar with not just the Globetrotters but the game of basketball until he saw a newsreel about the team at a movie theater at the age of 11. He was entranced by the sight of black men taking such a joyous approach to a game during a time of segregation.
"They seemed to make that ball talk," Lemon said when inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003. "I said, 'That's mine. This is for me.' I was receiving a vision, I was receiving a dream in my heart.'"
He rushed home from the theater that day and started fulfilling the dream by fashioning a basketball goal from a clothes hanger and an onion sack and using a tin can for a basketball.
www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/meadowlark-lemon-harlem-globetrotters-star-dies-83-n486701
