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| Dec. 27th Meadowlark Lemon- Michael Buckner |
Meadowlark Lemon, the lithe showman, jester and trick-shot genius who entertained audiences worldwide as the heart and soul of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, has died at age 83, the team announced Monday, December 28.
His website says Lemon and his teammates played before popes, kings, queens, presidents and regular basketball fans in nearly 100 countries.
Famous for his long-distance hook shots, sublime passing and pranks that included dumping buckets of confetti on referees, Lemon became the Globetrotters' biggest star.
Lemon, a native of Wilmington, N.C., received the John W. Bunn Award, an honor that recognizes outstanding lifetime contributions to basketball, in 2000.
He told his 2003 induction ceremony into the Basketball Hall of Fame: "When they got to the basketball court, they seemed to make that ball talk".
The basketball icon died Sunday in Scottsdale, Ariz.
He averaged 325 games per year during his prime, still smiling with humility after his achievements, at the end of the day, making people happy with his work.
"Meadowlark was the most sensational, awesome, incredible basketball player I've ever seen", Wilt Chamberlain - another former 'Trotter - said in a 1999 television interview.
Anyone who grew up in the 70s watching Saturday morning TV or the sports programming that followed will surely remember the iconic court jester George "Meadowlark" Lemon. But many forget that in their earlier days, the Globetrotters won games in more conventional ways - barnstorming the U.S.to play local all-star teams and college teams and the like. So in an effort to celebrate his life, we put together a list of things you should know about this basketball great. "But that didn't stop us from putting the comedy in there".
Rigging a makeshift hoop in his backyard, he taught himself the sport and eventually became a standout high school player.
After briefly attending Florida A&M University and serving in the US Army, Lemon's dream would be fully realised when he joined the Globetrotters in 1954.
Over the next two decades, Lemon missed just one game, which he said came in 1955 after he ate a bad bowl of goulash in Germany. By his own estimation, he played in 16,000 games.
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