Meadowlark Lemon, Famed Harlem Globetrotter, Dead at 83: NBA Stars, Celebrities React

In 2003, while being inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame, the Post reports, Lemon, the father of 10, apologized to his family for the Globetrotters’ grueling tour schedule. Throughout their history, the Original Harlem Globetrotters have showcased their iconic talents in 122 countries and territories on six continents, often breaking down cultural and societal barriers while providing fans with their first-ever basketball experience.

Traveling by vehicle, bus, train or plane almost every night, Lemon covered almost 4 million miles to play in over 100 countries and in front of popes and presidents, kings and queens. He was known for clowning around on the court while inspiring awe with his tricks.

The impact of the Harlem Globetrotters and Medowlark Lemon is one of the reasons basketball is now an worldwide game. “People would say it would be Dr. J or even Jordan”.

Lemon lived in CT for much of his playing career with the Globetrotters and was a Fairfield resident from 1957 to 1979 and returned for one more year in 1993, according to the Hartford Courant.

After he left the team in 1978 after a salary dispute, Lemon founded several other touring teams including Meadowlark Lemon’s Bucketeers, the Shooting Stars, and Meadowlark Lemon’s Harlem All-Stars, though none of those efforts became as famous as the Globetrotters.

Aptly described in his Times obituary as the “ringmaster” of the Globetrotters’ basketball circus, Lemon became known as the “Clown Prince of Basketball”. “We have lost a great ambassador of the game”, chief executive of Globetrotters Kurt Schneider told BBC. “But that didn’t stop us from putting the comedy in there”.

Crothers also voiced Lemon on the CBS animated series, The New Scooby-Doo Movies.

Lemon grew up in North Carolina and after a stint in the army where he played for the Trotters on overseas tours, he formally joined the side in 1954.

He also was one of a handful of Globetrotters whose fame transcended sports, especially among children during the team’s heyday in the 1960s and 1970s. “I want you to always remember that life’s most meaningless statistic is the half time score and as far as I’m concerned it’s always half-time”, he once said on his website.