Before the National Basketball Association was on TV 24 hours a day, there were the Harlem Globetrotters television specials and even a Saturday morning cartoon which featured their voices. The Globetrotters were funny and very athletic. They inspired us to go outside and try to do the moves they did. Though it only took a minute of trying to realize these guys were athletes and had practice long and hard to master the techniques they performed on TV and in person around the world.
Meadowlark Lemon was their leader in those days. He was famous for half court hook shoots and for making the lives of his opponents miserable, with his large hands, hugely long arms, and comic persona which everyone had to at least smile at. His opponents really had no chance and nobody cared it was scripted like Professional Wrestling.
According to the Internet:
"Lemon played 24 seasons and by his own estimate more than 16,000 games with
the Globetrotters,
the touring exhibition basketball team known for its slick
ball-handling, practical jokes, red-white-and-blue uniforms and
multiyear winning streaks against overmatched opponents."
As a viewer and fan of the Globetrotter art form, it has taken the passing of one of their leaders to cause me to reflect upon the tremendous service they did for society. Do youngsters today even know how he is and how much we looked forward to seeing him on our small TV screens? In an age when we were still coming to grips with segregation of blacks and whites, Meadowlark Lemon broke down barriers and made it okay to laugh at a team of hapless white guys being outplayed by all sorts of means in basketball by a talented group of Ambassadors of Good Will. That was the message and the moral of their story, repeated thousands upon thousands of times. It's as important today and in the future as it ever was when Meadowlark was preaching its gospel.
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