Sweet j harlem globetrotter2/24/2023 ![]() “You are the last group of men who will ever wear the Washington Generals uniform.” “I’ll send you a photo of this,” Ferrari said. He pulled out a camera and took a picture. He arranged them into something like a semicircle. “Guys, gather around for a minute,” Ferrari said. In a way, we’re all Washington Generals aren’t we? They had no idea in the beginning about the grind of the road, the trials of monotony, the exhausting challenge of playing hard in a losing effort night after night after night. So many were just kids, right out of college. There were the players, his players, he’d signed hundreds of them. It was so familiar.Īt halftime, he walked into the Generals’ locker room. But he looked around, at the thousand or so fans in the crowd, and he saw their joy. The right emotion, certainly, was sadness. Now, he sat in the Wildwood convention center, and he tried to feel the sadness. He would try to take in their joy and hold on to it. He would look at the awed and delighted faces of those adults who had grown up with the Globetrotters. Were they laughing? Were they having a good time? Ferrari would look at the way parents held up their children, so they could see. He never stopped trying.Īnyway for Klotz, for Ferrari, for the Generals, the real scoreboard was those fans. But, as Red always said, you never stop trying, right? Red Klotz died a year ago at the age of 93. Yes, beating the Globetrotters was a challenge. In the end, the Globetrotters would go into their famous “Sweet Georgia Brown” weave offense, which has no defense. The referees consistently missed blatant Globetrotters rules violations. True, they faced a few disadvantages, such as the fact that the Globetrotters would sometimes hide the ball under their shirts, or attach a string to the ball, or pull down the Generals players’ pants, or soak a player with a bucket of water. Weird as it sounds, the Generals were always playing to win. Read that again: The team’s purpose was to PLAY the Globetrotters, the purpose was not to LOSE to the Globetrotters. The team’s purpose, as you no doubt know, was to play the World Famous Harlem Globetrotters. He dubbed the team the Washington Generals after the country’s new president, Dwight D. They were also the scoreboard for Ferrari’s father-in-law, Red Klotz, who founded the team in 1953. He continued to watch the people in the stands. It was the most wonderful life they could ever imagine, though they almost never won a game. He and his wife, Jody, ran the Washington Generals. Maybe 20 years ago, he became something more, a position without a real title. How many basketball games had he been to in the last 35 years? Eight thousand? Ten thousand? More? Yes, this felt like home. The Globetrotters began in 1926 as the Savoy Big Five and in the past nearly 90 years have played more than 20,000 games around the world.John Ferrari sat in the Wildwood, N.J., convention center, and he watched the people in the crowd, and the thing that struck him was how normal it all felt. Young children, teenagers, parents and grandparents come together to see Blakes and his team play basketball, but more appealing are their ball-handling wizardry, rim-rattling dunks and fan interaction. ![]() Now known as "Bucket" Blakes, the 6-foot-2-inch guard who played for the University of Wyoming is still astounded by the the generational appeal of his Globetrotter team. Blakes and the Globetrotters come to Louisville Friday night. "I have memories of watching 'Meadowlark' Lemon and Curly on the court, which makes the fact that I am now a Globetrotter myself something very special to me," said Blakes in a phone interview from his home in Phoenix. Blakes remembers arguing over a box of popcorn with one of his nine siblings more than the basketball team that was clowning around on the court.Īs he got older, Blakes became more interested in the game of basketball and went back to see the Globetrotters. The first time Anthony Blakes saw the Harlem Globetrotters play was in his hometown of Phoenix. ![]()
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